Kira whispertail's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Back in the small rented room, Mira Softpaw locked the door and pulled a battered leather journal from inside her vest. Water stains warped the pages. Ink smudges crawled along the margins. She slid it across the table to Kira. "I lifted it off the shaman," she said. "Names. Ours, and others." Kira's fingers trembled as she turned the pages. Columns of half-breed names filled them, each with a bounty, a last-known location, and a small inked mark. Mira pried open the back cover and tapped a folded slip — a cipher key. "That's the whole thing," she said quietly. "Whoever wrote this is organized." Kira's silver eyes lifted. A plan formed, careful and bright. They would reach the named ones first. But a plan needed a place. Kira thought of the leaning hunters' cabins at the ridge — empty, forgotten, already known to her. They hiked up at dawn. They swept rotted leaves from the floors. Mira patched a broken shutter. Kira hauled a fallen beam clear of the doorway and wedged the gap in the wall shut with fresh planks. By dusk two cabins stood quiet and dry, ready for frightened strangers. Kira set the ledger on a clean shelf and rested her hand on it. "We start with the closest name tomorrow," she said. Mira nodded once. The dream was no longer only Kira's, and the door was open.