Elowen Cask's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

Petra stepped down toward the pool, blade in her palm. Behind her, boots scraped stone. The fae lord's guards spilled into the hollow court, spears leveled. They fanned out along the wet edge of the water. Elowen pressed her back to the rock. She had swum past six spears above. Now a wall of them stood between her and the only door. "Take her coat first," Petra said. "The contracts are worth more than the woman." A guard reached for Elowen. She shoved her hand into a sewn pocket and pulled out a rolled contract. Not one of her debtors' — her own. The one Petra had made her sign. She held it up so the pale blossom-light caught the ink. "This is your name on the bottom," Elowen said. "You witnessed it. You bound ten years of my life to it." She looked past the guards, to the throne shape in the dark beyond. "A noble's signed contract. In your lord's court. Does he know you sign your own name inside his walls?" Petra's smile stayed. But her eyes moved to the throne, quick and worried. Elowen pushed. "Nobles track fae lords. You've been charting him for years. If your name sits here, on paper, he can read every map you ever sold. Including the ones you sold him." A low sound came from the throne. Not words. The guards stopped. Two of them turned toward the fae lord instead of Elowen. Petra's hand tightened on the blade. "She's lying to save her skin." "Then let him read it," Elowen said. She threw the contract. It skipped across the water toward the throne. A guard lunged for it. Petra lunged too. For one breath, every eye followed the paper. Elowen dove. She hit the black water and kicked down, back into the flooded roots. Behind her, spears splashed. A hand grabbed her ankle and slipped free. The pale blossoms glowed along the vines ahead, marking the tunnel. She followed them the way the serpent had shown her, past the wall of trailing flowers, into the current. She surfaced under the open bank, gasping, and dragged herself onto mud. Her coat still clung to her back. She had lost the one contract. She still had the rest. Above, in the hollow, voices rose and fought. Petra's steady voice was gone. Something in that court was no longer sure of her. Elowen lay in the reeds and breathed. She had not reached the fae lord. She had not collected the debt owed for her mother's name. But she had walked out alive, and she had cracked the arrangement that trapped her. She pulled the map from her pocket. The blue river line had saved her twice now. She found the tree again on the paper. Next time she would not come as a lone swimmer. She would come with something the fae lord feared more than her — his own broken bargain with Petra.