Cascade Wildheart's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Cascade Wildheart had wanted a human friend her whole life. She watched them from the trees, learned their words, and dreamed of one who would not fear her aqua hair or her glowing green eyes. Now a woman lay in the brush below, bleeding from one leg, and Cascade did not move. A hunter. The word meant traps and arrows. Cascade knelt behind a fallen log and pressed her snow-pale hand to the bark. Beside her, a small white fox pawed the ground. His fur shimmered like wet cloud. The fox was her friend, and hunters killed creatures like him for their pelts. Cascade spoke to the fox in soft clicks and low sounds. "If I go to her, she sees you. She sees me. She might reach for a blade." The fox pressed his cold nose to her wrist. Cascade did not know if that meant stay or go. The woman groaned. Blood soaked the moss under her. Cascade could hear the pain in it. But she stayed frozen, her want and her fear pulling against each other. A shadow slid across the ground. Cascade looked up. A griffon dropped from the sky and landed between her and the wounded woman. Golden feathers, a white lion's mane, deep blue eyes. Cascade knew her. This was the old watcher of these woods, the one who had lived beside humans long ago and buried them all. Thalia Skyward missed nothing from the sky. Thalia folded her wings and studied Cascade. Her blue eyes did not blink. "You have watched that woman bleed for the time it takes water to boil," she said. Her voice was calm and rough. "You are afraid for the fox." "She is a hunter," Cascade whispered. "She is dying." Thalia turned her great head toward the woman. "I have known thousands of humans. I know which ones lie and which ones kill for joy. This one does neither. Her heart is only lonely and half broken." The griffon looked back. "I would not stand here if she meant harm to your fox." Cascade searched those blue eyes and found no trick in them. The old griffon could not be fooled, and would not lie to spare feelings. That was the whole weight of her word. Cascade stood. Her fear did not leave, but it stepped aside. She walked to the woman and knelt in the wet moss. "Guard him," she told the fox, and it circled back, out of the woman's reach. The woman's eyes opened. She saw the aqua hair, the green eyes, the impossible pale skin. Her mouth fell open. She was too weak to run. "Do not be afraid," Cascade said, in the human words she had practiced alone for years. "I can help you. But I cannot carry you far." Cascade lifted the woman's arm across her shoulders. Now a stranger knew her secret, and Cascade had to find shelter before the leg grew worse.