Cascade Wildheart's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Cascade stood dripping by the pond. Korven was gone, but Dani's words sat heavy. More men would come. The shed offered no walls worth trusting now. The griffon dropped from the broken table and landed in the grass. Thalia was old, golden, with a white lion's mane and blue eyes that missed nothing. She had watched Cascade for a long time before she ever spoke. Cascade trusted her judgment more than her own. "North," Thalia said. "My nest. High cliffs. He cannot climb them. We will see him coming for miles." Cascade knelt and set a hand on the white fox. He stood, shaky but steady enough. Dani pushed off the wall and tested her healed leg. It held. "You know what she is," Dani said to the griffon, nodding at Cascade. "You've known this whole time." Thalia's beak dipped. "Not here. Not in the open." She turned her blue eyes to the trees. "Ears in these woods. Move." They walked most of the day. The land climbed. By evening a cliff rose ahead, gray stone streaked with rust, broad ledges jutting from its face. Cascade found no path up. She set her fingers in a crack and started to climb. Dani did the same beside her, jaw tight. "Stop," Thalia said. "You will fall." She spread her wings wide. "I carry you. One at a time." She took Dani first. Cascade watched them shrink against the sky and settle on a high ledge. Then Thalia returned. Cascade gripped the fox to her chest and let the griffon's talons close gentle around her shoulders. The ground dropped away. Wind pulled at her hair. Then stone met her feet. The nest was not a bare hollow. It was built. Weathered branches and stone wove into a deep bowl, hung with a hoard of keepsakes gathered over long years. Dull coins, a scarf, a chipped mirror, small bright things swung from its edges. Inside, it was warm and dry. Cascade set the fox down. He curled at once and slept. Dani sank against a bundled hide, safe for the first time in days. Cascade turned to Thalia. "Now. Tell me what I am." Thalia folded her wings. She was quiet a moment. "A watcher," she said. "Your kind guarded the woods. Long ago. Humans killed them all." Her blue eyes held Cascade's green ones. "The water answered you today. It knew you before you knew yourself." "There are others?" "No." The word was flat. "I thought none were left. Then I found you in these trees. I have watched you for years, deciding." She dipped her head. "You are the last." Cascade sat down hard. The fox breathed beside her. Dani watched from the shadows, saying nothing. Cascade had a word now for the thing woken in her chest. She was not broken. She was the end of a line. And Korven's men were still climbing toward the cliffs below.