Celestra Winterbloom's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Celestra kept the dagger raised. Her back pressed into the tree bark. The wolf-skull creature stood over her, still as stone. Its ember eyes did not blink. She waited for claws. None came. "Put it down," the creature said. Its voice was rough, like gravel. "You will fall on it." Celestra did not move. "You saved me. Then you trapped me." "I did not trap you." It stepped back, giving her space. "Your leg trapped you. I stayed so the winged one would not return." She stared at the skull, at the fur, at the claws that could open her throat. Her arm shook from holding the blade. The pain in her ankle burned up her leg. She weighed the choice. If she stabbed him, she still could not walk. If she trusted him, he might kill her anyway. "Your name," she said, buying time. "Orpheus." He crouched, slow, so his eyes met hers. "You are bleeding. I can smell it. And I can smell your fear. Both are loud." The blunt honesty startled her. A monster would not warn her. She lowered the dagger an inch. "Can you carry me?" she asked. He did not answer with comfort. "Yes. But you should know the truth first." He went quiet a moment. "Sometimes I lose myself. I wake, and something is dead beside me. If that happens, run." Celestra's grip tightened again. Here was the danger, spoken plain. But he had spoken it. That mattered. She thought of the silver-grass clearing, the frozen breath, the thin veil she had crossed three days to find. She could not search for the ancient bloom with a ruined ankle and a winged thing hunting her. "I need help," she said. "I will trust you until you give me reason not to." She lowered the dagger and slid it into her belt. Orpheus lifted her without effort. His fur smelled of smoke and old ash. He carried her from the clearing, through the trees, to a wooden lodge patched with mismatched boards. Inside stood a wide bed dressed in black furs. He set her on it. From a shelf he took a bundle of white bandages and small supplies. He knelt and wrapped her swollen ankle with careful hands, claws tucked back so they would not cut her. "Rest," he said. "The winged one comes at dark." Celestra sank into the furs. She was safe, for now, in the home of a creature who feared himself more than she feared him. But she was no closer to the bloom. The thin place lay back in the open clearing, guarded by a beast with purple eyes. "That clearing," she said. "I must go back to it. There is something I have to wake there." Orpheus paused at the door. "Then you will need the winged one dead," he said. "It will not let you near."