Amalthea's Arc

Chapter 8 of 9

The dead trees marked the edge of the fen. Beyond them the water turned black, and pale stones broke the mud like teeth. Amalthea led the armored hound to the first stone. Its silver plates shone gray in the dying light. She stepped forward and clicked her tongue. The hound did not follow. It planted its paws in the mud and would not move. "Come," she said. She pulled the lead. The hound leaned back. Its ears pinned flat. A low growl rolled in its throat, aimed at nothing she could see. "It senses something," she said. "Something wrong in there." Corvus crouched beside the mount, the tall black-furred beast that had carried them from the marshes. He watched the hound with steady dark eyes. "Your father said the hound must stay with you," he said. "If it turns back, you break his terms. You lose his trust." "I know." Amalthea knelt in the wet ground. She took the hound's armored head in her hands. "Please. I need you." The hound whined and pressed against her. It would not step onto the stone. Corvus rose. "Let me try." He pulled off one glove. The dark veins climbed his hand like ink under the skin. He pressed his palm to the mud before the hound. Shadow spread from his fingers. It gathered into a low, dark shape beside the frightened beast, calm and still. The shadow-hound. Corvus's proof that his curse harmed no one near him. "See," he told the animal softly. "Nothing here will take you. I would not let it." Amalthea stared. She had touched the shadow-hound before, but never seen it made. The dark magic moved gentle as breath. The armored hound sniffed the shadow and its growl eased. Still it would not enter the black water. The path stretched ahead, swallowed in mist. Something stirred in Amalthea's chest. She did not choose it. Her hand lifted on its own, palm flat and open. Warmth ran down her arm. A spark bloomed above her skin, small and golden. It grew into a steady light that pushed back the mist. The dead trees showed clear. The white stones glowed. Amalthea gasped and nearly dropped her hand. "I did not mean to. What is this?" "Light," Corvus said. He was not surprised. "You are half Fae. Nature and light live in your blood. It only slept." He watched her with something close to wonder. The armored hound lifted its head toward the glow. Its ears rose. The fear left it. When Amalthea stepped onto the first white stone, the hound followed her into the fen. She walked the marked path with her light held high, the hound at her heel and Corvus at her side. Her father's condition held. His trust stayed hers. But the ground under her had shifted. She carried a power she never knew she owned, and it had woken beside the shadow prince.