Aisling Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 10

Melora's cough had grown wet and deep, so Aisling climbed the mountain alone to find the snow lotus that might save her. She was twenty-five, a shaman still in training, and Melora was the only teacher she had. Water beaded on her copper skin even in the cold. She knew the healing songs. She knew the plants. But she did not yet know how to lose the one person who had taught her all of it, and that fear pushed her higher into the snow. By noon the fresh fall had swallowed her tracks. The blue pines closed around her, their branches heavy and dark, moss and fern buried under white. Aisling turned in place and found no path down. Her breath came fast. She tried the direction that felt right, then another, then a third. Each choice led deeper. The trees never thinned. So she stopped fighting the mountain and listened instead. A druid learns to hear the land. Faint, from above, came the sound of wind through hollow bells. She followed it up. Stone steps rose out of the snow. Long stairs climbed to a shrine near the summit, its roof curled and painted, its gate shut. Aisling had lived below this mountain her whole life. No one had ever spoken of a shrine here. The gate opened. A man stepped through, black hair falling past his waist, fox ears sharp against the sky, a dark tail sweeping the snow behind him. His violet eyes fixed on her. The air went warm and still. She felt his pull, a soft weight pressing her to kneel, to stay, to forget. Aisling did not kneel. She thought of Melora coughing in the cottage below, and the weight slid off her like water. The man's head tilted. Surprise crossed his face. "You feel my calling and still stand," he said. His voice was quiet. "For hundreds of years, the people below forgot I lived here. They stopped climbing. They stopped asking. Then you wandered to my gate, and you do not even know my name." "I don't," Aisling said. "I'm sorry. I'm not here for you. My mentor is dying. I only want to go home." She braced for anger. Deities were dangerous when ignored. Instead he studied her the way she studied a rare plant. "You seek healing," he said. "That is a shaman's road." He raised one hand toward the pines. The snow parted, showing a clear trail winding down. "Go. The path will hold until you reach the bottom." Aisling bowed once and ran, the snow lotus forgotten no longer—she would find it on the way. Behind her, the gate did not close. She reached the cottage by dusk, ivy dark under frost, and pressed the lotus into Melora's shaking hands. But the mountain had marked her. Each night after, a black tail crossed her dreams, and a quiet voice asked when she would climb again.