Amanda Lynn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 14

The road left town and split into three. Amanda Lynn stopped at the fork. Moonlight showed her a stone marker, but the carvings had worn smooth. All three paths ran into black trees. Pick wrong, and she would lose hours she didn't have. Noon closed the door forever. She stood there, breath fogging, no way to choose. A sound moved in the brush. Amanda Lynn spun. A creature stepped onto the path, and the sight stopped her cold. Its body was split down the middle, one side pale gray, one side dark, striped like two animals sewn into one. It watched her with steady blue eyes, unafraid. "I won't hurt you," she said. Her voice shook. The creature turned and trotted a few steps down the left path. Then it looked back, waiting. A figure came behind it. B.A. Ware walked out of the trees with a lantern, boots quiet on the dirt. Half their hair was white, half black, and their face was split the same way, light and dark meeting at a hard line. They were a courier too. Amanda Lynn had seen them once at a starting line, always alone, always ahead. "You're going the wrong way," B.A. Ware said. They didn't smile. "The middle path is shortest on the map. It floods this time of year. You'd wade to your knees and lose an hour." "Why tell me?" Amanda Lynn asked. "You're racing too." B.A. Ware looked at her a long moment. "I run to beat people at their best. Not because they got lost in the dark." They nodded at the creature. "It knows the ground. Follow the left path where it goes. It cuts behind the flooded stretch and comes out below the guild hall." Amanda Lynn studied the split face for a lie. She found none, only that hard, even stare. She had no better plan and no time to doubt it. "Then I'll beat you at your best," she said. Something eased at the corner of B.A. Ware's mouth. "Go." Amanda Lynn ran. The creature loped ahead, pale flank catching the lantern glow behind her. It took her off the marked path, through a gap in the trees, along a dry ridge above dark water. The middle road would have swallowed her. Here her feet stayed on solid stone. The creature stopped where the trees thinned. Below, lamplight marked a cluster of roofs. The guild hall. It had led her true. Amanda Lynn gasped a thank-you and pushed downhill. Her splitting heel finally tore. The sole flapped loose with every step. She grabbed it, ripped it off, and ran on with one bare foot slapping cold ground. She had the route now. The dark could not trap her. But dawn was already graying the sky, and the road to the guild hall was longer than it looked. Barefoot, she would reach the door with the sun climbing toward noon.