Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 57 of 619

Cold air kept rising from the seam. Ajax pressed his palm harder to the stone and felt the seat drink. Grayson stood at his shoulder with his blade drawn. Behind them, Chalam fed the pale flowers into the flame one at a time. Elara held her satchel open at his elbow, ready with more. "Wider," Chalam said. "It needs the whole handful now." Elara tipped the flowers into his palm. He crushed them and dropped them in. The smoke pulled toward the seam and vanished into it. The seat opened a hand's width. Ajax looked down into the dark and saw something curled at the bottom, thin and gray, not moving. Smaller than the one at the coast. Older, maybe. Its eye was shut. "Now," Chalam said. Ajax drew his father's blade and dropped into the pit. He landed on stone. The creature did not stir. He set the point above its closed eye and drove the blade down. The body went slack under his hands. No sound. No thrash. He climbed back up and Chalam was already pouring ash from a pouch into the seam. Grayson gave him a hand up. "Clean." "Clean," Ajax said. He walked back to the creek where the men held their positions. Marco and Tucker stood at the path with blades low. Asher watched the keeper's hut from a stone above it. None of them had moved. "It is done," Ajax said. Tucker sheathed his blade. "That was quick." "It was asleep. My father put it deep." Marco looked at the seam, then at Ajax. "No one came up the path. No one came down." Asher slid off the stone and joined them. "The keeper stayed in the hut. She never looked out." The dryad came through the pale trees with the old woman beside her. The woman carried the empty bowl. She looked at the sealed seam and set the bowl on the ground beside it. "She is free of it," the dryad said. "She has fed it since she was a girl." The woman said nothing. She turned and walked back toward the hut without looking at Ajax. Chalam wiped his hands on his robe. "Two closed. Four left." Ajax pulled the map from inside his vest and unrolled it on a flat stone. Six marks. He drew a line through the second one with a piece of charred stick from Chalam's fire. Four coastal marks remained. He looked at the list of names folded behind the map. Five living. He did not know which one held this seat, or if any of them had. No rider had come. No horn had sounded. No one had tried to stop them. He rolled the map and put it away. "Water the horses," he said. "We ride at dawn. The next mark is north."