Elizabeth white's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The old woman's words still hung in the cold air. Elizabeth turned toward the tree line. Down the slope, dark shapes moved through the snow. Elves in gray armor. Beasts with too many teeth. Enemies from both peoples, climbing together toward her cabin. She had no path down that they did not already block. The wolf pressed against her leg and growled low. "I can't fight them all," Elizabeth said. "There's no way past." "Then don't go past," said a voice behind her. "Go under." Elizabeth spun. A young man stood by the willow, close enough to touch, though she had heard nothing. His hair rose like flame, red and gold. Fox ears twitched atop his head. A tail of fire swayed behind his black leather jacket. He looked her age, maybe younger, and he grinned like this was a game. "Shifter," Elizabeth said. Her hand found the small knife at her belt. "Come to hunt me too?" "If I hunted you, you'd be dead." He tilted his head. "Name's Ember. Your mother saved my clan once. I owe that debt to you." He nodded down the mountain. "They'll reach the cabin in minutes. I know a tunnel under the ice. It comes out below them." Elizabeth did not trust him. But the shapes below were closer now. She heard armor clink and claws scrape rock. "Why help me?" she asked. "Because you're both of us." Ember's grin faded. "Elf and shifter in one girl. Maybe you stop the war. Maybe you don't. But I'd rather bet on you than watch them gut you in your garden." A horn blew below. The hunters had seen her. Elizabeth grabbed the small journal from her coat and the golden rose from the ground. She would not leave them. "Show me the tunnel." Ember ran. She followed, the wolf loping beside her. He led her past the frozen waterfall to a crack in the mountain's face. Behind it lay a dark opening, its edges hung with icicles. Two doors waited inside, carved side by side. One pale ice, marked with snowflakes. One dark wood, marked with red roses. The Snow Clan on the left. The Shifter Clan on the right. "The Twin Clan Gate," Ember said. "Old trial. Elves take the left. Shifters take the right. No one takes both." Behind them, boots crunched at the crack. The hunters had found the entrance. Elizabeth looked at the two doors. Then she pressed one hand to each. The ice door groaned. The wood door groaned. Both swung inward together. Gold light spilled from the rose in her fist and lit the tunnel beyond. Ember stared. "That's not possible." "It is now." Elizabeth stepped through both gates at once. The wolf and the fox-boy followed. The doors slammed shut behind them, sealing the hunters out. She had escaped the mountain. But she had also proven, before a shifter's eyes, that the throne answered only to her.