Amalthea's Arc

Chapter 3 of 9

The chapel had given Amalthea his truth, but not his cure. She met Corvus again three days later, in the walled garden where moss softened the pale stone. She still kept her distance. The dark veins on his face had climbed higher. They now reached his cheekbone. She could not love a man being eaten alive by a thing she did not understand. She needed to know what the curse was, and whether it would spread to her. "It grows," she said. "You said it was a curse. But a curse from what? If I stand near you, does it take me too?" Corvus flinched. "That is the question I feared. So I brought you proof instead of promises." He turned toward the garden gate and gave a low whistle. A hound came through the vines. It was black as pitch, lean and sharp as a blade, with silver armor strapped along its body. It stood taller than any dog Amalthea had seen. She stepped back and reached for the wall. This was a beast from the shadowlands, the same dark that marked his face. "His name is his own," Corvus said. "He was born in the dark that cursed me. If my shadow spread to those near me, he would be a rabid thing. Watch." He knelt on the moss. He held out his bare hand, the veined one. The hound pressed its armored head into his palm. It leaned its whole weight against him, gentle as a lamb. Corvus laughed, soft and surprised, as if he had feared the test too. "The dark does not spread," he said. "It only stays in me. He lives in it and takes no harm. Neither would you." Amalthea watched the great hound. It turned its black eyes on her. She held her breath. Then it walked to her, slow, and lowered its head at her boots. Waiting. She had braced for a monster. She got a bowed neck. She crouched. Her hand shook. She laid it on the cold silver plate, then on the warm fur beneath. The hound pushed against her palm, same as it had with him. "He is a gift," Corvus said. "So you never have to take my word alone. Keep him near you. He is proof the shadow in me will not touch you." Something loosened in her chest. She could stand close to him now. She could reach for him. The fear that had held her back was gone. And that was the danger. Amalthea rose with her hand still on the hound's head. Nothing stood between her and the shadow prince anymore. The prophecy had not changed. It still promised her death if she wed him. She had wanted a reason to trust him. Now she had one, and it pulled her straight toward the thing that was foretold to kill her.