Cinn's Arc

Chapter 5 of 12

The cave fire cracked low. Cinn crouched behind a shelf of rock, her breath tight. Dolly watched the cave mouth, her scanner dark so its light wouldn't show. Then boots scraped stone outside. A shadow filled the entrance. A shaman from the fire had followed their trail. He carried a torch and swept it across the walls. "Someone ran this way," he called. His voice bounced off the stone. "Show yourself." Cinn knew the math at once. If he found her hiding, she was a thief and a spy. Her bone token meant nothing then. The seat she had bled for would close forever. Running would only prove her guilt. So she stood up. She stepped into the torchlight before Cyf could stop her. "I'm not hiding from you," she said. "I'm reading." Cyf tensed beside the fire. Cinn shot him one hard look. Stay still. He had wanted to storm the shamans with demands, and it had nearly ruined them. He trusted her now. He kept his mouth shut. Cinn pulled the old star-book from her bag. Its cover shone with worn gold stars, gifted long ago by a market elder. She had never opened it at a fire before. She opened it now. She set her bones on the flat page and cast them across it. "You felt something wrong at the ring," she said, reading the fall. "A pressure. It turned on all of us, not just me. You think it was me. It wasn't." She touched the third eye charm at her throat, letting its painted eye catch the light. "I read fate. I don't hide it. Look." The shaman lowered his torch. He studied the eye charm, then the bones, then her steady face. "You mapped the shield," he said slowly. "That was you." "Yes," Cinn said. "Because it's watching all of you and none of you know it. I do." He was quiet a long moment. "The elders will want to hear this," he said. "Not as a thief. As a witness." He turned the torch toward the cave mouth. "But the thing behind that shield heard your name tonight. Coming back to the fire means facing it in the open." "I know," Cinn said. The shaman left. His footsteps faded down the rock. Dolly let out a breath and dropped against the wall. "Okay so, that was insane. You just talked your way back in." "Not in," Cyf said. He stared at the fire. "Invited. To sit across from the thing I've been chasing." He paused inside the thought. "With everyone watching." Cinn closed the star-book. Her hands were shaking now that no one needed them steady. She had kept her chance at a seat. But the price was clear. Next time she faced the fire, the signal would be waiting, and it would know her by name.