Amara Hollow's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Amara lay in the mud with the dagger still warm in her hand. The purple light along the blade dimmed to a low pulse. The cottage door groaned. Something stepped out onto the broken porch. It was not a person. It stood on two legs like a man, but its head was a goat's, long-jawed, with two black horns curling up past the sagging roofline. Old scars marked its chest in crossed lines, as if someone had tried to seal it shut. A torn cloak hung from one shoulder. Its eyes caught the dagger's light and burned red. Amara could not run. Her legs would not answer. The warm thing behind her ribs had shrunk to the size of a coin. She had one strike left in her, maybe. If she used the dagger, it would drain more of her. If she waited and it was hungry, she would not get another chance. The fiend stepped down off the porch. In its clawed hand it carried a whip of dark metal and leather, the barbs glowing a sick pink along their edges. It dragged the whip through the mud as it came. The vines at the treeline shrank back from it. Amara raised the dagger. Her arm shook. The purple light flared. The fiend stopped. It looked at the blade. Then it looked at her face, at her wet hair, at the mud on her hands. Something moved behind its red eyes. It went down on one knee in front of her, slow, keeping the whip low and flat against the ground. "Put it down, child," it said. Its voice was low and cracked, like a man who had not spoken in years. "I gave that knife to your mother." Amara did not lower the dagger. She did not know what a mother was to her anymore. But the vines had feared him, and he had not struck. The white rabbit crawled out of the weeds. One of its back legs dragged. It hopped to Amara's hip and pressed against her, teeth bared at the fiend, but it did not attack. It watched him the way a dog watches a face it half remembers. Amara let the dagger tip lower. Just an inch. The fiend saw it and did not move closer. "The river gave you back wrong," he said. "I can walk you the rest of the way. But you have to choose it. I can't carry a child who won't be carried." Amara's mouth tasted like pond water. She thought of the cottage behind him, the black doorway, the curse still tightening under her skin. She thought of the coin of warmth behind her ribs. She turned the dagger around and offered him the hilt. The fiend took it. The purple light went out. He tucked the whip through a loop at his belt and lifted her out of the mud. The rabbit followed them up the porch on three good legs.