Flint Foxclaw's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Flint stood inside the ring and did not move. The carved stones breathed light around him, four small suns set into the grass. He had walked into the snare with open eyes. Now he waited to see what the snare would ask. The Owl went dark first. A soft hiss, like a candle pinched. Then the Hare. Then the Wolf. Each stone dimmed in turn until only damp grey remained, moss-furred and half-sunken, a broken half-circle of dead weight around his boots. Only the Fox stayed lit. It pulsed alone in the dark, black stone shaped like a small sitting fox, an orange glow flickering inside it like trapped firelight. Its yellow eyes burned steady and turned on him. Waiting. He understood. Three stones had offered themselves. He had to choose, or refuse, and refusing was also a choice. Flint knelt and laid his bare hand on the Fox. The stone was warm. The light climbed his fingers, soft and certain, and the carved fox tilted its head as if it had been listening for exactly that. Then the glow slid out from under his palm and ran across the ground in a thin orange line, leading away through the trees. He followed. The line ended at a pavilion he had not seen before, mirrored glass under a domed frame, thorny vines climbing every seam. His own face stared back from a hundred panels, tired and small. The doors stood open. Inside, something waited that was not a fox, and not a wolf, and not a man, but wore pieces of all three. Flint stepped across the threshold, and the doors closed behind him without a sound.