Amalthea's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

The witch stepped back from her doorway and let them enter. Inside, ivy crept through cracks in the black stone. The witch sat in a worn chair and folded her long fingers. "I know the road to the seer," she said. "You do not. The marshes will swallow you if you guess." Amalthea felt the cold rise from the wet floor. Outside, the armored hound waited in the mud, its silver plates gray in the dusk. "Then tell us the safe path," Amalthea said. The witch smiled with thin lips. "Nothing is told for nothing. I want a trade. Something you value. Not coin. Coin means little to me." Corvus stepped forward. The dark veins on his face caught the low light, but his voice was gentle. "Take from me. Not her. She has given enough already." "No," the witch said. "I choose. And I want what the girl carries." Amalthea knew before she reached into her pocket. Her fingers closed around the ring. She drew it out slowly. Diamonds circled a single black gem. It caught the firelight and held it. "This was my mother's," she said. Her voice stayed level, but her hand did not. "She wore it every day I knew her. It is the last thing of hers I have." The witch leaned close. Her pale eyes fixed on the black stone. "Yes. That one." Corvus reached for Amalthea's wrist. "You do not have to," he said quietly. "We will find another way through the marshes." "There is no other way," the witch said. "Only mine." Amalthea looked at the ring. She thought of her father, of the month bleeding away, of the answer waiting in the Ashen Fen. She thought of Corvus, and the price the seer would still demand from one of them. This was only the first cost. It would not be the last. She pressed the ring into the witch's palm. The long fingers curled shut like a trap. "The safe path," Amalthea said. "Now." The witch rose. She went to a cracked window and pointed across the reeds. "Follow the dead trees. Where the water blackens, keep them on your right hand. Step where the ground shows white stones. Stray once, and the fen takes you." She turned back. "The seer waits at the end. Remember, she chooses who pays." Amalthea walked out into the failing light. The hound rose to meet her. Corvus followed and stopped at her side. "I am sorry," he said. "That was your mother's." "It was," she said. She closed her empty hand. "But I gave it for the road that leads to you. To the truth about you." She met his eyes. The grief in her chest sat beside something warmer, something she had not named aloud. Corvus said nothing. He took her hand instead. The dead trees stretched ahead into the mist. The path was theirs now, bought and paid, and it led straight to the Ashen Fen.