Atlas Ironwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Atlas Ironwood crouched at the edge of the human road and counted torches. Six. Then eight. The village had sent more men than last night. They were looking for the girl behind him. Rosalind Thornwood sat against a stone with her sandals in her lap. Blood crusted one heel. She had walked since dark without a sound. Her mother was sick three valleys east, and every hour Atlas spent hiding her was an hour she was not on that road home. "They saw the wings," she said. She meant the little pony that had followed them out of the trees, the one no bigger than a hare, with pale feathers folded against its ribs. It stood now in the grass, watching the torches like it understood. "I know." "They think I'm one of you." "I know." He was tall and thin and his family had been thrown out of their grove before he was born. His grandfather would not pay the council's tithe. The council had the votes. Atlas grew up on the outside of the only place his blood knew. He meant to take it back. He meant to build a room inside it where this girl could close a door. But the grove was days away, and the men on the road were minutes. "I can't keep you with me while I look for it," he said. "They'll kill you for walking beside me." Rosalind pulled her sandals back on. "Then don't keep me." He looked at her. She looked at the grass. He had one place. An old bower his mother had shown him once, deep in a fold of the hills, woven from living wood and hung with lanterns that only lit for fae hands. No human had ever found it. No human ever would, without him. He led her there before dawn. The arch stood in a clearing, curtains of pale cloth stirring though there was no wind. Blooms opened along the frame as they approached. The little winged pony trotted through the arch first and lay down inside like it had been waiting years. "Stay," Atlas said. "The lanterns will feed you. The arch will hide you. Nothing human passes it." Rosalind stepped under the curtains. She turned. Her face was tight. "How long." "Until I find the grove." "My mother." "I know." She did not argue. She sat on the woven bench and set her hands flat on her knees. "Go," she said. He went to the edge of the clearing and stopped. When he looked back, the bower had already begun to blur, the way fae things do to eyes meant to leave them. In another step he would not see it at all. He took the step. The clearing closed behind him. She was safe. She was also hidden from him now, and from the road she needed. He had bought her life and taken her way home in the same breath. He turned west, toward the grove, and started to run.