Cinder Shepherd's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Cinder stood by the river with the sealed lantern warm against their ribs. The name inside it was their mother's. The empty place behind their eyes was where her face had been. Cinder had no time to sit with either. On the horizon, a gray wall was climbing fast into the red sky. An ashstorm, wide as the flats themselves, coming straight for them. The fox rose from the rock and pressed against Cinder's leg. Its ember-red fur crackled. Its white eyes tracked the wall of ash. The stag stamped once and turned its antlers into the wind. Cinder counted lanterns hanging from their staff. Dozens of small iron cages, each holding embers gathered from other lost souls over the years. An ashstorm this size would rip them loose. The embers would scatter across miles of flats. Years of work, gone in one gust. The new lantern would go with them. There was no cave in sight. No wagon. The caravan had already crawled off downriver and left only wheel ruts. Cinder scanned the flats. Far to their left, a shape broke the flat gray line. A tree. Cinder knew it by the skulls hanging in its branches, ivory against the black wood. An old bone orchard tree, alone on the plain. Its trunk was thick. Its roots humped up out of the ash in a ring. "Go," Cinder said. The stag broke first. The fox ran at Cinder's heel, sparks trailing. The wind hit them halfway there. Ash bit Cinder's hands. The lanterns on the staff clanged and swung. One iron cage tore free and rolled across the ground, ember tumbling out. Cinder lunged, caught it, jammed it into their robe. They reached the tree as the storm closed. Cinder dropped to the roots and pulled the fox in against their chest. The stag folded its legs on the leeward side and lowered its head. Cinder unhooked every lantern from the staff and pushed them down into the hollow between two roots. They laid their body across the pile. The mother's lantern went at the bottom, under their ribs, where they could feel it. The storm passed over them for a long time. Ash filled Cinder's hood. The skulls above knocked together in the branches like wooden bells. The fox did not move. The stag did not move. Cinder counted lanterns by touch. All there. When the wind dropped, Cinder sat up. Ash slid off their shoulders in sheets. The flats around the tree were smooth and blank. Every ember Cinder had ever gathered was still burning under their arm. But the wheel ruts were gone. The river was gone under gray drift. Cinder did not know which way they had come from, and did not know which way led home.