Alaric Goldwyn's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The captive dug his heels into the moss and yanked Alaric's arm. Alaric frowned and held the whip-leash tight. They stood at the edge of the grove now, past a wall of thorned wood with one narrow gap. Through the gap Alaric saw a shelter grown from living branches, and a warm room inside with a polished wooden bar and tall crystal mirrors. A woman in a white gown looked up from the doorway. This was the grove the captive had spoken of. The men in the trees wanted it. "You said you'd sell what you find," Alaric said. "So sell me the rest. Which gods bury relics. How they empty the finders. Talk, and I loosen this." The captive's pointed ears went red. "Not for nothing. I want off this leash and a coin for the road. Then I say it all." Alaric had a money pouch on his belt and little patience left. But the woman stepped through the gap before he could answer. She moved without fear, brown hair loose down her back. "He lies to buy time," she said. She looked at the captive, not at Alaric. "Men wait in my trees because of him. He scouted my grove. He would sell me the same way he sells you words." The captive's grin cracked. "She shapes wood with her hands. Ask her. She built that wall in a night." Alaric watched the mirrors catch lamplight behind her. She had raised the thorned wall and the shelter from bare branches. That was power the hired men wanted, and power that could pin a talking captive in place. "Then I don't need your coin to make you talk," Alaric told the captive. He turned to the woman. "Hold him. Grow the wood around his wrists. He'll trade his tongue for air soon enough." She hesitated at the gap. "And when he's told you, what do you owe me for the cage?" "Your wall can't hold that narrow passage alone," Alaric said. "Men are coming through it tonight. I can hold it. That's my trade." Elena studied him a long moment. Then she knelt and pressed her palm to the ground. Roots climbed the captive's legs and locked his wrists behind him. He thrashed and cursed. "Wait," the captive gasped. The bark tightened at his throat. "Gods bury the relics to catch the greedy. The finder digs, and the god takes the memory clean. You go home hollow, not dead. I've seen the hollow ones. I can name three." Alaric went still. He had believed this for years. Now a bound man said it plain. "Name them after the fight," Alaric said. He coiled his whip. "First we hold the passage." Elena rose beside him, her jaw set. The captive was caged, the truth was out, and the men in the trees were already moving.