Alexis Glaciermage's Arc

Chapter 11 of 13

Past the arch, the path forked around a great mossy boulder. Pinned to its face was a weathered map, edges curled, a bold X inked at its center. Rikki pulled his folded map from his coat. The two matched, line for line. "Same hand," he said. Alexis touched the boulder map and felt no warmth. The warm one was his. The wind through the trees pushed them toward the inland path. They walked. The map glowed brighter with each step. Alexis flew up once to read the canopy and found no wind at all above the leaves. She dropped back to the path. "It wants us on foot," she said. Rikki did not argue. The trees opened on a stone mouth set into a low hill. Vines hung over the arch. A small black flag flicked above it though no wind moved. Two old barrels flanked the entry. Inside, lanterns burned that no one had lit. They went in. The tunnel ended in a round room. On a flat stone in the center sat a wooden chest, banded in iron, a golden fox head fixed where the lock should be. The fox's eyes caught the lantern light and held it. Alexis stopped at the threshold. The captain did not. "It's yours to open," Rikki said. "The map answered you first." Alexis stepped forward and laid her paw on the fox's muzzle. The metal warmed under her pad the way the paper had. Something inside the chest shifted on its own. A small thump. Then another. The lid eased up a finger's width and stopped, waiting. Alexis lifted the lid the rest of the way. Two small shapes blinked up at her from a nest of old sailcloth — one scaled in plain gold, one in scales that ran every color at once. They were the size of her two hands together. The gold one chirped. The rainbow one climbed onto her wrist and would not be shaken off. Rikki let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "Well," he said. "That's what we came for." Alexis closed her hand gently around the small gold body and knew, without saying it, that the ship's next course was no longer hers to choose alone.