Jade's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Two days after Felix's warning, Jade was splitting kindling behind the stone cottage when she heard a stumble in the brush. She dropped the hatchet and reached for her bow. The stoat popped out of her hood and froze on her shoulder. A man came through the roses at the front path, one hand pressed to his side, blood on his knuckles. He saw her bow and stopped. He said his name was Darien. He said he had fallen from his horse on the ridge and could not find the trail back. Jade kept the arrow nocked and asked him what he was doing on the mountain. He said he had been hunting elk two days east and had followed a stream up when the weather turned. He did not know whose land this was. He did not know the name of any lord nearby. When she said the name Volkay, he only blinked and asked if that was a village. His eyes did not shift. His hand stayed on the wound, not near a weapon. The stoat sniffed the air toward him and did not hiss. She told him to sit on the bench by the door. She cut his shirt away and cleaned the gash along his ribs with water from the kettle. He winced but did not speak. He watched her hands, then her face, then looked away at the roses climbing the stone. She wrapped him in linen from the cupboard and gave him bread and broth. He ate slowly. He said thank you three times in different ways. He said he had never met anyone who would open a door to a stranger with blood on him. She told him to sleep by the hearth and not to touch the door. When dusk came she whistled three short notes down the slope. Felix rode up within the hour. She met him at the tree line and told him everything. Felix looked at the shuttered window and frowned. He said his father would want the man questioned. She said the man knew nothing and was hurt. She said she would not turn him out into the dark. Felix studied her, then nodded. He said he would sit up on the porch through the night with his knife and a horn. If Darien moved wrong, one blast would bring riders from the valley post by dawn. Jade thanked him and meant it. Inside, Darien lay on the pallet by the fire with his eyes half closed. He watched her bar the door and set her bow within reach of the bed. He watched the small stoat curl against her neck. He thought he had never seen a woman move with such quiet care, and he did not understand why a girl alone in a mountain cottage had a prince on her porch. He said nothing. He closed his eyes and slept, guarded by a boy he had not yet met and trusted by a woman who had every reason not to trust him.