Alyla Franco's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Alyla did not reach the barn at dawn. A rider from the castle caught her on the east road, out of breath, and said the king had asked for her by name. She looked once toward the ridge where the dark stretch waited. Then she turned her horse toward the capital, because a king who knew her name knew something she needed. The castle rose out of the plain in gray stone and colored glass. Guards passed her through without searching the quiver. That told her enough. Inside, the throne room smelled like sick flowers. Petals lay swept into a corner, black at the edges, curled inward like burned paper. King Roderick Rosewood stood by a low table, not on the dais. He was round and rosy-cheeked, dressed in blue, and he was holding a dead rose by the stem. Beside him the queen watched Alyla come in. Ruby Rosewood did not smile. She wore the same blue her mother had worn, and she stood very still. "You're the elf with the black arrows," Roderick said. "Good. Come look at this." He held the rose out. The bloom had collapsed on one side. The soft rot was the same rot Alyla had smelled in the lightless forest. "The dark stretch above the old barn," she said. "It's spreading." "It's here," Ruby said. "The bushes in the south garden went first. Then the east. I lost three men in the wall where the smell started. One was the gardener's boy." Roderick set the rose down. He did not soften it. "Thomas. He volunteered. I let him." Alyla pulled an arrow from her quiver and laid it on the table. The wood darkened under the head. Roderick did not flinch. Ruby leaned closer. "Its own scale," Alyla said. "It cuts. It doesn't kill. I've been up there four times. I've hit it. It keeps moving." "Then you need what we have," Ruby said. She looked at her husband. Roderick nodded. "There's a stone in the old vault. Elf-cut. My grandfather kept it for a season like this. It burns blight out of soil. If it burns blight, it may burn the thing that makes blight." "Set the arrowheads against it," Ruby said. "Let the stone take. Then shoot the beast with what it fears." Alyla picked up her arrow. "Bring it." Roderick sent a steward running. The queen watched Alyla the whole time the man was gone. When he came back, he carried a small pale stone on a cloth. Alyla laid each obsidian head against it, one by one. The stone grew warm. The arrows did not shine, but the dark around them thinned, just a little, like a held breath letting go. "Twelve," Roderick said. "Make them count." "I'll need more than twelve," Alyla said. "The stone. I take it with me." Ruby wrapped the stone in the cloth and put it in her hand.