Dom Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 11 of 14

Dom walked back toward the arch with the compass in one hand and the skull's weight still cold in his arms. The path led him past the clearing where her carved tree stood. He stopped without meaning to. The hollow trunk rose pale where the bark had peeled, its rings spiraling with the warnings she had cut before she died. Something new shone on its face. A fresh gash, wet and bright, sap still bleeding down the grain. The letters were small and steady. *To the rider who returns alone: you have already done this. Turn back anyway.* Below the cut, a rusted metal plaque had been nailed into the wood, its message half-eaten by time but the date beneath it clear — a date twenty years before he was born. Dom lowered his eyes to the roots. A stone bench sat half-buried in moss at the tree's foot. Initials crowded its surface in pairs, each set joined by a dash, each ending in a year. He counted seven. He found his own initials near the edge, the second date blank. The moss had not yet grown over the cut. He set his hand on the bleeding letters. The sap was warm. He had carved this. He would carve it again. Dom turned from the tree and kept walking toward the arch, no longer trying to break the loop — only trying to reach it before the next rider passed him on the path.