Finn Ashford's Arc

Chapter 10 of 12

Finn set the cup down half-empty. The drink tasted of clove and something colder underneath. The fire popped. The woman watched him from across the table, her black gown shifting at the shoulders where red fox fur curled against her throat. Outside, wind pressed against the lodge wall. He could smell roses through the stone. That alone told him something was wrong. Roses did not bloom in winter, and no flower reached a nose through walls. "How do you know I lost it?" Finn said. She tilted her head. Blonde hair slid across one shoulder. "I was there," she said. Her green eyes stayed on him. "Do you remember our night together? That last night?" Her hand slid across the table and covered his. Her fingers worked between his knuckles. Finn's mouth went dry. He had no memory of any night with her. He had met her once, at a table in a different town, and he had walked away. "What are you talking about?" he said. The scar above his brow burned hotter. He pulled at his hand. She held it. Through the slit window above the hearth, colored light bent across the floor in long shapes. He had not noticed the glass was stained until now. The stone walls felt taller. The beams felt closer. He thought of the arch he had walked under at the door, iron twisted through pale roses he had told himself were frost. They had not been frost. She leaned in. Her breath touched his ear. "You don't remember how much fun we had?" Finn tried to stand. His knees would not lock. The room slid sideways. Two of her sat across from him. Two cups. Two fires. The trail of roses he had followed for days, the bracelet on his door, the watcher on the ridge, all of it had pointed him here, and he had walked in and sat down and drunk what she poured. He had trusted the wrong instinct. He had trusted any instinct at all, with those flowers around the walls. "Wait," Finn said. His tongue was thick. "You, you—" He reached for the table edge and missed. "Do not worry, my love," she said. "You'll be awake soon." She stood. Her gown brushed the floor. She crossed to the shelf and took down his two daggers, the red-stone handle and the blue, and slid them into her belt. Then she opened a fur-lined trunk near the wall and lifted out a coil of rope. Finn's cheek hit the table. He saw her boots cross the boards. He saw the door swing open onto the pale tower beyond the lodge, stone climbing into the trees, roses crawling up its sides to narrow windows of colored glass. She had not been hiding in the lodge. The lodge was the threshold. Then the floor took him.