Elara Moss's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

By dusk no one had climbed the hill. Elara waited in the moss as she always had. But the village behind the inn had gone dark. Doors were barred. Shutters closed. Lamps snuffed. No family came with a child in hand. Her demand needed ears, and the village had chosen deafness. She could not enforce a threat no one would answer. The owl with the glowing eyes shifted on its branch. It turned its head toward the road, where a small figure walked up through the willows. Elara watched. The willows leaned their yellow branches away, their green sap glowing under the dark leaves. A young woman came into the clearing, red-eyed, dressed in dark red under a black coat. She stopped a few steps from Elara and looked her over without fear. Elara knew her by the ground she had marked. This was the one who had dissolved the pact and sent Elara to the lowlands thirty years of standing ago. The vampire who had taken her willows and her road. "They won't open the doors," Stephanie said. "You picked a threat they can hide from." "The binding was answered," Elara said. "The debt still holds." "A debt no one hears isn't a debt. It's a woman shouting at a wall." Stephanie glanced back at the dark village. "You need them to listen. They won't. Not to you." Elara said nothing. The truth of it pressed on her like weight. "So use someone they already listen to," Stephanie said. She lifted two fingers. A second figure stepped from the tree line. A man in a battered coat and a chalk-marked board, red eyes catching the willow-glow. He walked the road for Stephanie now, telling travelers to move in daylight groups. "This is the preacher," Stephanie said. "They believe his warnings. Give him yours to carry." Gideon Ash stopped and studied Elara. He did not flinch. "I've heard the story," he said. "A child owed. Thirty years." He tapped the board. "People open doors for a warning. Not for a threat." "Then warn them," Elara said. "Tell them what comes if they give nothing." Gideon was quiet a moment. "I'll say it plain," he said. "By the next dark, choose. Or the debt chooses for them." He turned and walked down toward the barred houses, board swinging. Elara looked at Stephanie. "Why help me speak?" "You standing here draws my sire's eyes," Stephanie said. "Settle your debt. Take your child. Then leave my willows." She stepped back into the trees. Gideon reached the first dark house and struck the shutter with his fist. His voice carried across the silent village. One by one, lamps flickered back to life. A door cracked open. Then another. Faces returned to the windows. The village was listening again. But now Elara owed the vampire who had taken everything from her once, and the debt she had come to collect was no longer hers alone.