Ember's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

The square was quiet now. The blight lay dull in the stones. Elara still held the spare staff in one hand. Ember leaned on her own, favoring her gray ankle. She watched the girl and saw what six years had made. Someone who stayed and fought while others ran. Someone worth teaching, if the girl would let her. "Show me a ward," Ember said. "Any one you know." Elara did not move. "You already decided about me. Years ago." "I'm asking now." "You said I wasn't ready." Her voice stayed flat. "You rode off. I kept studying. My master won't raise me either. So why should I show you anything?" Ember did not defend the old choice. She pointed at the dull blight on the stones. "That will wake if light touches it. The people are still close. I can't carve fast anymore. My hands shake." She held one up. It trembled. "Yours don't." Elara looked at the sleeping rot. Then at the villagers pressed against the far wall. "The calming rune drew it," she said. "Light is bait. A ward that glows will call it here." "Then make one that doesn't." The girl's jaw tightened. She knelt by a loose cobble and set the staff down. She drew a small knife from her belt. She began to cut a ward into the wood, quick and sure. But she carved it shallow. No glow rose from the lines. "A dark ward," Ember said. "Combat work." "Barrier, not light." Elara did not look up. "I won first at the trials with these. My master said nothing." She stopped herself and kept cutting. She finished and pressed the carved wood flat against the stones, ringing the dull blight. She spoke three low words. The lines bit into the cobbles. A faint pressure spread outward, with no glow at all. The rot stayed sunk and still, sealed beneath the dark ward. Ember stepped onto the carved ring. The cold did not rise. The seal held. "That's better craft than mine ever was at your age," Ember said. It was plain fact, not comfort. Elara finally looked at her. "You still left." "I was wrong." Ember held out her shaking hand. "I can't carry this road much longer. My ankle will spread. I need someone to carry the warnings after me. I'm asking you." Elara stood slowly. She did not take the hand. But she did not turn away. "Teach me what killed this blight for good," she said. "Not just sealing it. Banishing it. Then I'll decide." Ember lowered her hand. She had passed the first test by failing to be proud. The girl had agreed to walk with her, for now. "I don't know the banishing," Ember admitted. "But I know who might. We'll have to find them before your ward wears thin."