Demeter's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Demeter stood at the edge of the healed stand and looked at the hills beyond. Rot climbed every slope. Somewhere past them slept the spirit she had come to wake, and the blight crawled toward it faster than her feet could carry her. She tightened the strap of her pack. The glowing potion bumped against her hip. Enough power to heal. No way to reach the trees in time. She started walking anyway, because standing still would help no one. A shadow slid across the leaves. She looked up. A huge beast dropped through a gap in the canopy and landed hard between two maples. It had the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. Its feathers were white and brown, fluffed at the neck. It fixed her with a sharp yellow stare and screeched. Demeter froze. The sound rattled her teeth. The beast lowered its head and stepped toward her, talons raking the dirt. Then she saw its leg. A black vein of rot ran up one foreleg, and the limb trembled under its weight. The griffon screeched again, but the cry broke into a whine. It was not hunting her. It was hurting. "Easy," Demeter said. She held out her green-scaled hands, palms open. "I can help that. Let me close." The griffon snapped its beak near her face. She did not step back. She knelt instead, slow, and set her hands on the sick leg. The beast went still. She uncorked the potion and drank a swallow. The glow spread through her arms. She pushed her power into the rotting limb. The black vein shrank. New feathers pushed through where the skin had gone gray. The griffon shuddered, then let out a low sound, almost a purr. It bent its front legs and lowered its back toward her. The meaning was plain. Demeter stared. "You want me to ride?" She climbed onto its back and gripped the thick feathers at its neck. The griffon spread its wings and beat them once, twice. The ground dropped away. Wind tore at her dress. Below, the dying wood unrolled in every direction, hill after hill of gray trees. The griffon banked toward the oldest maples at the far edge, and the distance that would have taken days shrank to a single flight. Demeter laughed from fright and joy at once. She had her speed now. She pressed the potion to her chest so it would not fall. But as the griffon carried her over the ruined hills, she saw how far the rot had already spread. Gray reached the oldest trees ahead, the ones that held the spirit. She could fly to them now. The question was whether she still had time to heal what she found there.