Aldric Thornmoor's Arc

Chapter 2 of 16

The rabbit screamed with Aldric's voice, and the sound bent him at the waist. He straightened, wiped his mouth, and looked at the sigil he had just cut. Half the lines were gone. The other half twitched under the bark like a severed finger. He set the blade against the wood and cut again. His voice inside the rabbit thinned. He cut a third time. The scream broke down into croaks, then into wet clicks, then into nothing. His throat stayed empty. He tried the first line of the winter proclamation. A dry hiss came out. He tried his own name. Nothing. He had erased the sigil he cut as a boy, the first mark he ever set into the world, and his voice had not come home with it. Someone had cursed the work. He pressed his palm to the raw place in the bark and understood the council had done more than banish him. They had gone into the woods and rotted his oldest thing. "Sit down before you fall down," Wanda said. He had forgotten the woman with burned hands had gone. This one stood on the path in a white and pink dress, black ringlets to her waist, hands charred to the wrists. A fire witch, by the look of the hands. She did not offer them. He stared at her. He could not ask what she wanted. "I saw you cut," she said. "I heard it scream. I'm not leaving a man crying at the roots of a dead tree. Not tonight." She jerked her chin down the path. "Drink first. Fix it tomorrow." He shook his head and pointed at his throat. "I know," she said. "You don't need a voice to drink." She walked. After a moment he followed. The bar sat under a black tree strung with charms that clinked in the wind. Warm windows. The sign read Auntie's Margaritas. Wanda pushed through the door. Aldric ducked under the low beam and stopped. Behind the counter floated a length of night sky shaped like a worm. Small stars moved inside its body. Two bright star-eyes fixed on him. It had no mouth. "Two," Wanda said. "Something strong. He can't talk, so don't make him." The worm tilted toward Aldric. He felt it taste the air around him the way a dog reads a stranger. "Voice trouble," the void chef said. Flat. "Third one this month. Tuesday's was worse." It slid two glasses across the wood. Aldric sat. He touched the coin broach at his collar. The council had reached into the woods to silence him. He drank. The drink burned all the way down and did not open his throat. Wanda watched him over her glass. "Tomorrow," she said, "you tell me who you think did it. Tonight you finish that." He nodded, and drank again.