Ember's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Elara's words still hung in the air. Ember did not argue them. She watched the blight turn away from the fence and crawl toward the warm light in her hands. Her calming rune had quieted the people. Now it called the rot straight at them. The villagers stood packed behind Elara, too calm to run. Ember had made them easy prey. "Everyone stays where I put them," Elara said. She looked at the spreading black. "They'll die standing still." Ember saw it then. The blight followed light. It did not think. It only hungered. She could not hide the light. But she could move it. "Then we give it something brighter," Ember said. "Away from here." She pulled a second staff from her pack. The spare one, slim, its carvings faint. She pressed it into Elara's hands. "Take the people out. The far side of the square. Keep them behind you." "And you?" "I carry the light." Ember lifted the glowing map high. She walked straight at the rot. The black veins lurched toward her. She felt the cold come off them. She backed away, slow, and the blight followed the light like a dog follows meat. Step by step she drew it from the crowd, toward the empty stones at the square's edge. "It's working," Elara called. She herded the villagers the other way. They moved now, their calm breaking into careful steps. "Keep going." The rot came faster. It climbed the cobbles. Ember's boot caught a broken stone and she went down hard. The map slid from her grip. The blight surged for it, a wave of black reaching her ankle. Cold bit into her leg. "Ember!" She grabbed the map and threw it. It skidded across the stones, far from her, its light still burning. The blight twisted after it. The whole mass turned and poured toward the thrown map, away from her, away from the crowd. Elara ran to her and dragged her up. The old woman's leg had gone gray at the ankle, the skin hard and dark. They watched the rot swallow the map. The light flickered under the black. Then it died. The blight stopped. With no light to chase, it slowed and sank into the stones, dull and still. The square went quiet. The villagers stood safe at the far wall. Elara held the spare staff in one hand and Ember's arm in the other. "You threw away your own rune," Elara said. "To save strangers." Ember looked at her ruined ankle. The gray would spread. She knew that much. Her carving days were short now, maybe shorter than her road. "I threw the bait," she said. "The warning stays with me a while longer." Elara did not let go of her arm. For the first time, she was not watching Ember fail. She was holding her up.