Hackii's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

The crystal sword lay on the floor. Hackii had swung it at the wolf and failed. Now the queen held his name, and she wanted a lost tapestry more than she wanted him. He picked up the blade and rose. If she wanted the Amberveil, he would offer to find it. That was the only path left to her heart. "My queen," he said. "Send me for the tapestry. Not the wolf. Me." Titania Amberwilde stepped down from her throne. Amber eyes, silver hair, a crown of pale blossoms. She stopped close to him. "You have no name," she said. "You have no map. Frostwhisper has both." Frostwhisper sat at the foot of the throne, white fur bright in the dark hall. The wolf's blue eyes stayed calm. It had traded Hackii's name to her and made itself her guide. It looked at Hackii the way a winner looks at a loser. "I found the hollowfruit," Hackii said. "I reached your court. I do not quit." He held out the gemblade to her. "Take back your sword. Keep my name. But let me earn it." Titania did not take the sword. She studied his face. Something in her look shifted. She had watched him kneel, fail, and rise again. "You still want me," she said. "After all of it." "Yes," Hackii said. "That has not changed." Frostwhisper stood. "He cannot lead you anywhere, Queen. He is lost the moment he steps under the trees. I hold his name. The wood hides from him." The wolf's voice was smooth. "You need me." Titania turned to the wolf. "You sold his name for a favor," she said. "You would sell mine too." Her voice went flat and cold. "I trust the one who came back after he lost everything. Not the one who profits from it." Frostwhisper's ears went back. For the first time the wolf looked unsure. Titania faced Hackii. She reached out and closed his fingers around the gemblade's hilt. "Keep it," she said. "You will go for the Amberveil. Frostwhisper will give you the direction. That is its last payment to me." She looked at the wolf. "You owe me that much for a name I never asked to hold." Frostwhisper's tail lowered. It could not refuse the queen in her own hall. "West," it said at last, quiet. "Past the border. A stone manor wrapped in ivy. The tapestry waits there." Hackii felt the sword steady in his grip. The queen had chosen him. Not for his name. For his stubbornness. He saw it now in her amber eyes, warm where they had been bored. "Bring it to me," Titania said. "Then we will speak of your name." Hackii bowed. He had come to court a fool. He left it her chosen searcher, a wolf's directions in his ear and a lost house waiting in the west.