Elaria Silverstan's Arc

Chapter 29 of 39

The icehouse held the cold better than the wind. Elaria set the cooler on a stone shelf and cracked the lid so Lia could breathe. Then she emptied her satchel on the floor and counted what was left. A frayed strap. The half-spent ice shard. The paired-stone locket. No food. No fuel. Her hands shook when she tried to knot the strap, and that told her more than any mirror. She had maybe a day of walking left in her legs, and Lyra's lodge was farther than that. She forced herself back outside before the shaking got worse. Snow had covered her tracks from the elk. The trees stood still. She needed a village, a trap line, anything, and she needed it before dark. A snow fox stepped out from behind a birch. Small. Silver. It watched her the way the fawn had watched her, months ago at the crevasse. It turned and trotted downhill, then stopped and looked back. Elaria followed. She did not have the strength to question it. The fox led her along a frozen creek bed to a low mound under a leaning pine. A snow-dusted opening. A den. The fox slipped inside and came out again with something in its jaws and dropped it at her boots. A strip of dried meat, stiff with cold. Then another. Then a small waxed bundle a trapper must have lost, still sealed. The fox sat back on its haunches and waited. She knelt. "Thank you," she said, because there was no one else to say it to. She tucked the meat inside her coat against her ribs to thaw. The waxed bundle held tallow and tinder. Enough for a fire. Enough for one more push. The fox rose and trotted on, and she followed again, chewing a corner of the meat as she walked. Her legs steadied. The creek bent, and through the trees she saw yellow windows and a peaked roof and a signboard swinging on iron hooks. Frozen River Crossing Inn. Smoke from the chimney. Horses in a lean-to. No red coat among them. She stopped at the treeline. The fox stopped with her. She reached into her coat and broke off a piece of the dried meat and set it in the snow. The fox took it and was gone between the birches without a sound. Elaria crossed the road and climbed the porch. Inside, she paid for a bowl of stew and a corner bench with the smallest coin she had. She ate slowly. She fed Lia a shaving of frozen ration through the lid. When the innkeeper's wife asked if she needed a room, Elaria shook her head. She would sleep two hours on the bench, refill her flask, buy a lamp of oil, and go. She had bought the road to Lyra's lodge. Now she had to walk it before the merchant found the inn.