Aldric Ash's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The fire had burned down to coals when Aldric closed the fourth notebook and lifted his head. His host had gone up the stairs an hour ago. He listened. The house was quiet. He had until dawn, and then she would walk out the door and be gone with whatever she was. The map on the table showed a frozen river bend and three survey marks and a wide blank field where this house sat. It told him nothing about the rooms above him. If the woman he had hunted for seven years lived under this roof, or had ever lived under it, he would find no proof by sitting at the kitchen table. He stood and took a candle from the mantel. The great hall opened into a corridor lined with narrow doors. He tried each one. A pantry. A boot room. A study with a locked drawer he could not force without noise. He climbed the stairs on the outside edges where the wood did not creak. The owl watched him from the banister and did not move. On the second landing he found a small room with a writing desk and a leather folio like the one she had given him downstairs. He set the candle on the desk and opened the folio. Inside were deeds. Three of them, in a hand that was not hers, signed by a woman named Tudor eighty years ago. Under the deeds lay a bundle of letters tied with green thread. He read the top letter. It was addressed to Freya. It named a Tuesday, three witnesses, two funerals, and a name he knew. The name of the man who had drawn his map. The man had written to her twice. In the second letter the man asked her to wait for him and promised he would come. The letter was dated four years ago. Aldric sat down on the edge of the desk and read it again. The woman he had chased across seven years of ice was not ahead of him. She had been behind the door the whole time. "You could have asked." Freya stood in the doorway in the green dress, barefoot, a lamp in her hand. She looked at the open folio and then at him. "He told you I was farther on. He told me you were dead." She let it sit. "I am still leaving at first light. You can come with me for the papers, or you can go back the way you came." She set the lamp on the desk and walked out. Aldric folded the letter and put it in his coat. He had found her. He had found her by breaking into her rooms, and she knew it, and the man on the map was alive.