Jade's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Felgrim folded the letter and set it on the mantle. He said Volkay would search every room in Autumn Castle, and a hidden guest was a found guest. Felix stepped forward from the doorway where he had been listening. He said he knew a place in the mountains, a small cottage his mother had used before she died, half a day's ride up through the maple woods. No servants. No road markers. Felgrim looked at his son for a long moment and nodded once. He told Felix to take Jade at dusk and to tell no one, not even the steward. They rode out as the sky went red behind the towers. Jade wore a plain cloak over her bow. The stoat rode in her hood. Felix led on a small brown horse, cutting off the main track within the first mile. The trail climbed. Leaves crackled under the hooves. Felix did not talk much. When he did, it was to point out a fallen log or a spring where the horses could drink. Jade watched him and thought about what kind of boy gives up his mother's cottage to a girl he met four days ago. The cottage sat in a clearing eight sides wide, built of dark timber with an orange lamp already lit inside. Felix said his father had sent a man up that morning to stock the larder and light the fire. He showed her the bar for the door, the shutters, the back path down to the stream. He said he would come every second day with news. Before he left, he set a small wooden dragon on the table, a toy from his own childhood, and told her it had kept him company when he was scared. He said it could do the same for her. Then he mounted and rode back down through the dark trees. Volkay arrived at Autumn Castle the next afternoon with twelve riders and a black rose sewn on his coat. Felgrim met him at the gate and offered him the full run of the house. Volkay took it. His men opened every wardrobe, lifted every rug, walked every corridor of the three towers. They pulled straw from the stable stalls. They knocked on walls for hollow spaces. Felgrim sat in his hall and drank wine and watched. By nightfall Volkay stood in the courtyard with dust on his sleeves and nothing in his hands. He told Felgrim he was a liar. Felgrim told him to prove it or ride out. Volkay rode out. Up in the cottage, Jade set an arrow across her knees and waited for Felix's signal. It came the next morning, three short whistles from the tree line. He climbed down from his horse smiling. He said Volkay had left empty, but he had not left the country. He had made camp a day's ride south and was asking questions in every village. The search was over. The hunt had started.