Blossom Honeycomb's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Blossom carried the wounded nestkeeper toward the center, walking the ridge path where the roots ran deepest. The mouse's breathing had steadied against her chest, but it hadn't woken since the clearing. She needed it to wake. She needed to know what was coming. She stopped at the old southern gate, the one she'd trusted to hold the boundary while she worked inward. The wooden fence stretched in both directions, its carved posts woven with protective wards that had stood for three generations. The gate itself still glowed faintly in the morning light, its barrier intact. But when Blossom looked closer, her breath caught. The fence to the left of the gate had a hole torn through it at ground level, the wood splintered outward as if something had burst through from inside the Glen. Fresh claw marks scored the edges. The nestkeeper stirred against her chest, eyes opening halfway. Its voice came out barely louder than breath. "Came through... behind the banners... already inside." Then its eyes closed again. Blossom stared at the broken fence, then back toward the center where she'd been driving every creature. The threat hadn't been moving inward from the southern ring at all. It had crossed the boundary days ago, and she'd been pushing the Glen's creatures directly toward it. She turned and started running. Blossom reached the first banner marker within minutes and tore it from the ground. The golden rod bent in her hands as she snapped it across her knee and threw the pieces into the brush. She ran to the next clearing and pulled down that marker too, then the third. Her chest burned but she didn't slow. Every creature following those signs was walking into a trap she'd built herself. When she reached the fourth marker, she stopped long enough to turn the banner around, repositioning it to point creatures back toward the outer rings instead of inward. The nestkeeper's locket pressed against her ribs through her sleeve. She pulled eight more rods from her pack and began placing them in a new pattern, forming a ring that would guide the creatures away from the center and toward the cold root paths at the edge. It wasn't a haven anymore. It was a scatter point. She would lose the center of the Glen, and with it the promise she'd made to protect it. But the creatures would live long enough to find shelter beyond the boundary, and that was the only choice left that meant anything. By midday she'd reversed every marker and set new ones along the stream that ran through the outer edge. The water flowed clear over smooth stones, bordered by flowers still untouched by whatever hunted behind her. She laid the nestkeeper in soft grass beside the bank and pressed her palm to its chest until she felt the heartbeat beneath the fur. It would survive if she left it here, far from the center. The gathering she'd planned was finished before it started. Now she would walk back toward the threat alone and see what had already claimed the heart of her Glen.