Jane Cross's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Jane Cross knelt where the boot prints stopped. Dark stains marked the frozen ground, then nothing. The trail led her across the border before dawn, toward the old fort ruins that sat like broken teeth against the gray sky. Now she had a choice that felt different from every other choice in three years of searching. A leather satchel lay half-buried in snow at the trail's end, its brass buckles dull with age. Medical supplies had spilled across the ground — bandages, thread, small glass bottles. Someone had worked here, tried to stop bleeding, then moved on without leaving tracks. Jane touched the frozen fabric and felt the contradiction settle in her chest. She came here to find her parent, not to chase footprints into foreign territory where she had no rights and no backup. She stood and walked to the border marker — an ancient necklace hung from an iron post, its blue gemstone catching the dawn light. The charm marked the exact line where her authority ended and everything else began. Beyond it lay the fort ruins and whoever took the person she'd been working beside for months. Behind it lay the boarding house, the charter claim, the narrow path she'd carved toward finding answers about her own abandonment. She pulled the dagger from her belt, the one with gold engravings that matched the lock symbol she'd displayed as evidence. The blade had been her mother's once, or so the letter claimed. Jane drove the dagger into the ground at the necklace post and crossed the border alone. The choice belonged to her, even if it meant the search for her parent would wait longer. Some things you couldn't walk away from, not if you wanted to recognize yourself when the walking stopped.