Diaspor Aspenwind's Arc

Chapter 17 of 18

Diaspor walked east for three days with the swarm at his back and no name for what he was looking for. He had no map to Nightshade's home. He had only the bond. He held the gold wheel pendant in his palm as he walked and watched the swarm. When the path forked, he stopped and let them choose. They drifted left without hesitation, then right at the next split, then straight through a break in the bramble that he would have missed. The pendant warmed when he turned the way they wanted. He understood. Whatever leash he had accepted, it could be pulled both ways. He let the swarm lead him to the place that had made them. The land changed before the house did. The trees along the path bent at the wrong angles. Bark turned black and shone with a dull purple sheen. One tree near the trail had no leaves at all, only thorned branches twisted up like clawed fingers, its roots cracking the stone beneath it. He set his hand against the trunk and felt the hum of the swarm answer through the wood. The curse was already here. It had been here longer than he had been alive. He understood then that he had not brought the rot east. He had only come home to its source. The entrance stood at the end of a low hollow. A single pale tree leaned over the path, its branches webbed thick with smaller limbs. Set deep in the bark, watching him, were eyes. A dozen of them, yellow and slit-pupiled, blinking out of order. They tracked him as he stepped past. None of them moved otherwise. The swarm did not enter the hollow. They settled in the dead trees behind him and went quiet for the first time in days. He drew his sword and walked under the watching tree alone. The house was small and built into a rise of stone. The door hung open. Inside, the air smelled of cold ash and old iron. He found a cot, a basin, a rack of dried herbs he did not recognize. On a low table at the back wall sat a book. Dark leather, purple along the spine, a star of pale stones set into the cover. He opened it. The first pages listed names. Some were crossed out. Kess was crossed out. His own name was on the next page, not crossed out, followed by columns of small careful notes — places he had slept, fae he had spoken to, the date she had first set the falconbees on his trail. Further in, the writing changed. Diagrams of the bond. The pendant. The hive. A method for binding the swarm to a chosen master, and beneath it, in the same patient hand, a method for cutting that bond. He sat down on the floor with the book across his knees and began to read.