Aster Alloway's Arc

Chapter 4 of 26

Two days into the groves, Aster's compass pulled her to the edge of a stream. She stopped. The water ran wide and fast between the trees. It looked cold enough to steal her breath. The compass tugged toward the far bank, past the reach of any step. She tested the water with one hand. Her fingers went numb in seconds. Wading meant drowning or freezing. She could not cross. She walked the bank with all four arms out for balance. No stones broke the surface. No log lay across. The far side held only dark trees and one twisted shrub. Its branches sprouted glowing eyes that wept frozen red drops. Aster looked away fast. Whatever the compass wanted was past that thing, and she had no way over. Then she heard a soft hum above the rushing water. She looked up. A market floated in the air over the stream. Its towers curved like petals, strung with glowing lanterns. Vendors leaned on rails woven from vines, calling to no one. A rope ladder hung from the lowest deck, its end swaying just past the near bank. Aster jumped for the ladder. She missed. She backed up, ran, and jumped again. Two hands caught the bottom rung. She hauled herself up, arms shaking, pollen shedding from her apron. On the deck a vendor watched her without surprise. "You want the other side," the woman said. "Everyone does. This market drifts where the wind takes it." She pointed across. The far tower hung low over the opposite bank. Aster crossed the swaying decks. She passed stalls of night-blooming plants sealed in a glass house that shimmered with dew. She passed a floating island stitched from lavender and bright blocks, where children stacked bricks that never fell. The market swung slowly on the wind. She gripped the rails and waited. Inch by inch, the far tower drifted over solid ground. Aster climbed down the second ladder and dropped onto the far bank. Her boots hit soil. She had crossed. The stream roared behind her now, on the wrong side to stop her. She pressed a hand to her chest. The compass burned hot, hotter than before. It pulled hard toward the dark trees ahead. She stepped past the shrub with the weeping eyes. Its branches turned to follow her. She kept moving. Then she stopped cold. In the mud at her feet lay a scrap of faded cloth, half-buried. She pulled it free. It was a strap, torn from a pack. The same weave as the pack on her own back. Bella's sister had come this way. And she had not come back. Aster folded the strap into her apron. The far bank was won. But the groves ahead had already swallowed one woman who chased this bloom.