Aela Darkwood's Arc

Chapter 9 of 13

The moon cleared the pines. Its light fell into the ring of trees and pooled on the flat ground where Lyra had set the branch. Aela stood at the edge. Kalen waited across from her with the folded knife in his hand. Lyra held the book open, one finger on the copied knot. "Shirt up," Lyra said. "Ribs bare. Lie down in the light." Aela reached for the hem. Her hands stopped. The scars on her forearms caught the moonlight, pale and raised, and she thought of the pool behind her mother's house. She had been small. She had climbed onto the fence to watch the older kids swim. A boy had grabbed her arm and pulled. The wire had opened her skin from wrist to elbow. Her mother had cried harder than Aela did. Her mother had said, don't let anyone see. Aela had kept her sleeves down for ten years. She took a step back. "I can't," she said. Lyra looked up from the book. Kalen did not move. "You can," Lyra said. "He'll see them." Aela's voice cracked. "The cut. It'll be another one. On my ribs this time. Where I can't cover it." "Aela." Lyra closed the book on her thumb. "Two nights left. Maybe one. If the moon sets before we start, you stay like this. Ears. Tail. Slow. Forever." Aela's hands shook at the hem of her shirt. "I saw them at the shop," Lyra said. "I didn't say anything then. I'm not saying anything now. Kalen won't either." Kalen shook his head once. "I've got my own," he said. He turned his palm. The old swirl sat in his skin next to a fresh red line across the base of his thumb. "One more cut. Mine first." Aela looked at him. She looked at the pool of light on the ground. She thought of running as a wolf. Not this half thing. The full body. The ground disappearing. She pulled the shirt up to her collarbone and lay down. The moon touched her ribs. She kept her eyes on the branch's green glow so she would not see her own arms. Lyra began to read. The words were low and even. The skin over Aela's wrist tugged, then loosened, as if a fist inside her opened. Kalen knelt. He opened the knife. The runes on the blade brightened. He set the edge to his own palm and drew it across. Blood welled. Then he leaned over Aela and made a small cross on her ribs, quick, one stroke and another. She gasped. He pressed his bleeding hand flat over the cut. The cross glowed red under his palm. The light spread. It ran up her side, along her throat, into her jaw. Her eyes filled with the same red light. Her back lifted off the ground. Her feet left the grass. She hung above the ring of pines, held in the moon, while Lyra kept reading.