Aria Blackwing's Arc

Chapter 2 of 24

By morning the storm had passed. Aria opened the shutters and let cold light into the cabin. The young owl slept in a nest of cloth by the hearth, its splinted wing tucked close. She counted her shelves again in the daylight and the count did not improve. She needed to walk to the village before nightfall for salve, linen, and more wood for splints. She was pulling on her boots when a heavy sound stopped her. Not a bird. A boot on the porch step. Then a slower one. Then a knock that came in against the doorframe more than on it. Aria opened the door a hand's width. A tall man leaned on the post, his weight all on one leg. Blue eyes, dark hair matted with rain from the night before. His right sleeve was torn at the shoulder and dark with blood. He tried a small smile and did not manage it. "I saw the smoke," he said. "I've been walking since the storm. I don't mean to trouble you." He was not a bird. That was the first clear thought she had. She knew how to hold a sparrow's heartbeat steady in her palm. She did not know how to hold a stranger. Her hand tightened on the door. Behind her the black bird on the mantel shifted its feet. The owl did not wake. "You're bleeding," she said. "Fell on a branch in the dark. It went deeper than I thought." He looked past her at the fire, then back at her face. "Point me to the next house and I'll go." There was no next house within walking on that leg. She knew it and he probably knew it too. She thought of the last splint, already on the owl. She thought of the one jar of salve. She thought of a door closed on a man who might not reach the village by dark. "Come in," she said. "Sit by the hearth. Don't touch the bird on the cloth." He ducked through the doorway and lowered himself onto the stones. She fetched water and the last clean cloth. She cut his sleeve away at the seam. The cut ran from shoulder to elbow, clean but long. She washed it. She spread salve. She used the linen she had meant to save for splints and wrapped his arm tight. "Derek," he said, while she worked. "Greenwood." "Aria." She tied the knot. "You'll stay until that closes. A day. Maybe two." He looked at the shelves, then at the sleeping owl, then at her. "You're low on everything," he said. "I know." She sat back on her heels. The jar was empty. The linen was gone. A grown man lay against her hearth where a second injured bird should have fit. She had chosen him, and the choice had spent what little she had left.