Atsuki Nightwhisper's Arc

Chapter 7 of 17

The family huddled in the trees below the cliffs. Wind cut through their thin clothes. Two children shivered against the old woman. Atsuki knew the woods would not hide them long. Matthias had lost the winged lynx, but he would circle back with lanterns and men. The family needed walls tonight. Atsuki had no walls to give them. He knew only one person in Eldergrove who hated the priest more than he did. He left them in a dry hollow and ran the dark road to Vera Thornwick's shop. Twice the priest's men had come to her door asking about a hidden family. Twice she had lied to their faces and sent them the wrong way. Atsuki pounded until she opened. She stood in the doorway with a pestle still in her fist, glaring like he'd woken her from spite. "You're the one stirring the priest," Vera said. "Now you bring his mess to my step." "They have nowhere to sleep," Atsuki said. "Children. An old woman. Matthias will find them by dawn." Vera looked past him at the empty road. She did not soften. She set the pestle down. "There's a place," she said. "Old monastery up the cliffs. Sealed for years. The oldest houses hid their hunted there once. Nobody's opened it since." She reached under her counter and dropped a coil of rope in his arms. Thick loops. Reinforced bindings. A harness, handmade. "The path climbs. The old woman won't manage it. You'll need this." "Why help me?" Atsuki asked. "I'm not helping you." Vera pulled on her boots. "I'm helping anyone Matthias wants dead. Same thing tonight." They brought the family up the cliff path in the dark. Vera led. Atsuki carried the smallest child. When the trail turned to bare rock, he buckled the old woman into the rope harness and hauled her up hand over hand. Her weight burned his arms. He did not stop until the ledge leveled out. The monastery rose from the stone, tall and gray, its windows black. Its front door stood strange against the old walls, dark stone twisted with wooden vines, green leaves carved into the black. Vera pushed. It held. Atsuki set his shoulder beside hers. The door groaned inward on dead hinges. Cold air breathed out, dry and still. "Inside," Vera told the family. "Bar it from within." The children filed through. The old woman gripped Atsuki's wrist. "You found us walls," she said. Walls, and a night. Atsuki looked back down the black cliffs. No lanterns yet. Vera was already turning to go. "They can't stay hidden here forever," she said. "Matthias knows every stone in Eldergrove. He'll think of this place eventually." She started down the path. "Better hope you learn your name before he does." The door closed. Atsuki stood alone on the ledge, the whole pendant warm in his fist.