Fenrir Moonscar's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Fenrir held the broken shard to the crypt's dim light. The old script ran along its edge, a line of names, but the crack cut the last words away. His own name should sit there. It did not. Frost watched him turn the shard over, hunting for what was gone. "It stops here," he said. "The rest broke off. Without it, I still don't know what I am." A voice came from the dark behind the direwolf. "You are close. Closer than any who came before." A small figure stepped into the glow. She wore a white robe marked with blue moons, and a stone gleamed at her brow. She moved without fear past the scarred guardian, and the beast dipped its head to her. Fenrir smelled no lie on her, only calm and old sorrow. "I have wandered these shores for years," she said. "I read the moon's script. I knew a heir would reach this room one day." Frost's hand went to her belt. "Who are you?" "A priestess of the lunar line. Show me the shard, marked one." Fenrir did not move. Too many had died for this mark. But the pup pressed against the priestess's leg and did not growl. Fenrir trusted the pup's nose. He held out the shard. She traced the script with one finger. Her lips moved. "This tells your blood back six generations. But the maker split it on purpose. He feared the shrine trap would fall into the wrong paws." She looked up. "The other half was buried with the last elder of your line." "Where," Fenrir said. "A cairn of frost-rimed stone, out past the black water, on the high tundra. I have seen it. The runes on its face match these." She pointed to the shard, then tapped her own brow. "I can read the whole story only when the two halves meet." Frost stepped close. "My brother died for less than this. How do we know the cairn holds anything?" The priestess met her eyes. "Because I helped seal it. I laid the elder to rest myself. I could not read his gift then. I can now." Fenrir weighed the shard in his palm. The answer was not here. It had never been here. It lay in a grave across the sea he had just crossed. He looked at the pup, at Frost, at the guardian that had bared its throat to him. "Then we go back," he said. "To the cairn." The priestess bowed her head, the same bow the grey elder had given him long ago. "I will guide you. But the mark that guided you here will burn again out there. It always does." Fenrir wrapped the shard in fur and tied it close to his chest. The crypt had held half his name. The other half waited under stone and ice. He turned toward the lower path, and the pup ran ahead into the dark.