Kael Shadowthorn's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

Kael Shadowthorn wanted the black arrow that pierced any heart, and the old maps said it slept in a crypt no living man had found. He knelt in the snow outside his black-stone keep and spread three cracked scrolls across a flat rock. Each scroll pointed a different way. One sent him north. One sent him east. One drew a crypt with no landmarks at all. He had traced these lines for a month. Legends did not freeze; he would. Without a real lead, the wilds would swallow him before spring. A cough sounded behind him. Kael's hand went to his sword before he turned. An old man stood at the ruined gate, leaning on a staff. A crystal glowed pale at its top. A small red dragon sat on his shoulder, tail curled around his neck. Kael knew him. Years ago this wizard had taught him to read the old scripts, then vanished when the lessons turned dangerous. Aldric Stormweaver. The man who had left him with half an answer. "You still hunt that arrow," Aldric said. He did not sound surprised. "You knew where it was," Kael said. "You always knew." The dragon hissed a thread of smoke. Aldric climbed the broken steps and looked down at the three scrolls. He tapped the one with no landmarks. "This map is a lie. Copied by men who never went." He nudged it aside with his staff. "The other two are lies as well." Kael's jaw tightened. "Then I have nothing." "You have me." Aldric lowered himself onto the rock, joints cracking. He pulled a worn book from his belt and opened it. Inside lay a single dried leaf, bone-white and blackened at the edges. "The crypt sits under a dead tree of bone. There is only one. I saw it once, and I ran." "Why did you run?" The old man did not answer that. He pressed the leaf into Kael's gloved hand. The crystal on his staff flared, and a thin line of light burned across Kael's palm, then faded into the skin like a scar. "The leaf remembers its tree," Aldric said. "It will pull toward it. Walk, and it grows warm. Turn wrong, and it goes cold." He closed the book. "That is your lead. A true one." Kael turned his hand. The leaf shivered, then pointed him east, toward the deep wilds. Warmth spread through his glove. For the first time in a month, one direction felt certain. He stood and slung his bow across his back. "Come with me." Aldric shook his head. The dragon shrank against his beard. "I told you what I saw. I will not see it twice." He was already walking away. "Whatever guards that tree let me leave once, boy. It will not bargain a second time." Kael watched him go. Then he closed his fist around the warm leaf and started east.