Corvus Nightshade's Arc

Chapter 4 of 11

Three days past the altar, the blue wolf had not come back. Corvus and Elara packed light and left the farm at dawn. They walked as a couple looking for land — quiet, plain, easy to forget. In his coat pocket, Corvus carried a small silver ring with a moss-green stone. He had bought it from a tinker at the last crossroads. It would do the work a story could not. They took the slow road, the one that bent through low woods and old farmland. A weathered covered bridge marked the edge of the next valley. Vines hung from its dark beams. Corvus stopped at the mouth of it and slid the ring onto Elara's finger. "If anyone asks," he said. She looked at her hand, then at him. "Then they'll believe it," she said. By late afternoon, they came on a small cottage with painted shutters and pots of flowers along the path. An older woman swept the step. Elara asked, soft and tired, about a room for the night and any land for sale nearby. The woman's eyes went to the ring first. Then to their joined hands. She smiled and waved them in. They ate at her table and answered her questions. Elara spoke of a garden she wanted. Corvus spoke of a barn he would build. The woman nodded along and named two plots down the road. Nothing in her face said she doubted them. The cover held. For one night, they were exactly who they pretended to be. Before dawn, Corvus stepped outside to check the path. The blue wolf stood at the edge of the garden. Pink marks glowed soft along its flank. It watched him without moving. Then it turned and walked west, slow enough to be followed. Corvus went back inside and woke Elara with a hand on her shoulder. "It came back," he said. She was already reaching for her boots. They left coin on the table and slipped out before the woman woke. The ring stayed on Elara's finger. The disguise had worked — well enough that they could use it again, and would have to. The wolf had given them a direction at last. It was leading them west, toward the court, faster than Corvus had planned to move.