Avi Marie's Arc

Chapter 5 of 30

Avi Marie led Azrael up the slope, his bound wings dragging on stone. The goat limped beside her horse. She had not thanked Malphas yet. He had saved her at the chapel, but she did not know what he was. A goat who hunted a thief, who knew Azrael's game before she did. Allies came cheap in the low places. So did traps. "You knew his plan," she said to Malphas. "Before I did. How?" Malphas kept his eyes forward. "I watched him for weeks. Not for you. For the thief he serves." "The same one who sent him," she said. It was not a question. "Maybe." The goat's voice hardened. "A council took a horn from my family. Old relic. It reopens judgments. Someone stole it from its altar. I was on the hill that night." He stopped and looked at her. "So was a man who runs the land registry. His hands were too still." Avi Marie stopped the horse. She weighed it. A goat with his own loss, his own thief. Not sent to guide her into a pit. "You want the same master I do." "I want the councilman," Malphas said. "If he's your master too, we walk the same road a while." Azrael laughed low behind them. "You'd trust the goat." His clipped voice cut the air. "He has his own hunt. His own reasons to lie." "So do you," Avi Marie said. "You dress in white and feed people to a beast." "I hunt the thing that hollows," Azrael said flatly. "I watched it empty someone I loved." He shut his mouth. He would not go there again. That line stopped her. It was the first true thing he had said. She saw it then. Azrael and Malphas both chased the same object. Both had lost to it. Azrael had chosen to herd for it. Malphas had chosen to hunt it. The difference was the whole difference. She tested Malphas one last time. "If I go up to name the master, you go with me. Not down the stairs." "Down the stairs is death," the goat said. "I want the man at the top of the hill. Same as you." He had refused the trap. Azrael had built it. That was her answer. "You're my ally," she told Malphas. "Not a trap." The goat dipped his chipped horn once. Behind them, Azrael's smile died. He had wanted her doubting the goat, splitting them, buying his own chance. He had failed. Avi Marie tightened Azrael's reins. "The horn and the beast serve one hand," she said. "A councilman who runs the land registry." She looked at Malphas. "You saw his face. You'll take me to him." "I'll take you," Malphas said. She had walked into the low places hunting a beast. She climbed out with a name to find and a goat who wanted the same man dead.