Cobalt Goldlight's Arc

Chapter 3 of 12

The knock came three hours after dark. Cobalt stood from the desk where he'd been marking routes on a scrap of paper and crossed to the door. His pack had settled into the cabin's corners, some sleeping, others talking in low voices. The knock came again, harder this time. He opened the door to a woman he'd never seen before. She wore travel clothes caked with snow and mud, her breath coming fast like she'd been running. Without a word, she held up an amulet shaped like a bat, garnet stone gleaming at its center. Cobalt recognized the symbol immediately — it belonged to the old vampire houses, the ones who'd built manors with cherry trees and locked gates before his time. The ones who didn't let outcasts through their doors. He reached for the amulet, but she pulled it back and pointed past the cabin toward the forest edge. There, half-buried in the snow, sat a smooth moonstone egg the size of his fist. It hadn't been there when they'd arrived. Someone had marked this place while his pack slept. Cobalt stepped outside and picked up the stone. It was cold enough to burn his palm, and underneath it lay three territorial markers — his own boundary stone from the cabin, one from the rival pack's forest claim, and a third he didn't recognize. The woman spoke then, her voice tight. "They came through yesterday. Took two of mine before I could warn them. They're claiming everything between here and the eastern ridge." She gestured at the amulet again. "This was pinned to my door with a blade. They want us to know they're here." Cobalt looked at the three stones in the snow, then back at the cabin where his people rested behind thin walls. He'd accepted shelter here to keep them alive, but he'd walked them into a intersection neither he nor the rival pack controlled anymore. The woman watched him, waiting for an answer he didn't have. He closed his fist around the moonstone egg and met her eyes. "How many came through?" She shook her head. "Enough that I ran instead of counting." Cobalt turned the stone over in his hand. His pack needed more than a cabin before winter ended — he'd known that when he accepted the deal. Now he knew they needed it faster than he'd planned, and he'd need help he couldn't get alone. He looked back at the woman. "Come inside. We need to talk to the ones who gave us this place."