Estella Valehollow's Arc

Chapter 3 of 11

The wind died. Estella stood at the gate, listening. Below her, in the circle, the runes had not gone dark after the burning. They pulsed now, slow and steady, like a heartbeat under the snow. She turned back and walked down the slope. The stones were warm. Something inside them wanted to show her where he was. She knelt at the center stone. A small glass globe rose from the snow between the runes, lifted by nothing she could see. Inside it, a swirl of light cleared. She saw Adrian. He was not running. He was not hiding. He stood in a bright kitchen with pale wood walls, a child on his hip, laughing at something past the frame. He wore a plain wool sweater she had knit him two winters ago. A woman's hand reached into the vision and touched his arm. Estella's fingers closed on the globe until the glass cracked. She set it down in the snow, stood up, and wiped her palm clean. He had not been hunted. He had been happy. Now she knew where to go. The globe rolled and showed her the outside of the place. A small cottage sat under snow-dusted eaves. Warm lights glowed in every window. A chimney smoked. A wreath hung on the door. Estella stared at it until the vision dimmed. He had built a life. A wife. A child. A home with lights in it. She stood in the cold and let the truth settle into her bones. Then she smiled, slow and thin. She knew the shape of what she would take from him now. She would take the lights out, one by one. She turned from the circle and walked to the dead tree at the ridge. She placed both hands on its bark. She spoke a word she had not let herself speak before. Fire climbed the trunk in seconds. Every branch lit at once. The heat pushed the snow back in a wide ring. She watched it burn and did not flinch. When the last branch cracked and fell, she walked back to the keep. She had a cottage to find now, and a family she had never agreed to.