Kortana's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Kortana crept back toward the woodcutter's camp with the crow tight on her shoulder. She had to see the rune-marked axe again, to know if she could take it before the full moon. The camp came into view through the ferns, and she stopped short. It was not just a stump and a fire pit. A small hut of bark and mud stood under the pines, with a green roof and a tidy little window. A carved bird house rose on a post beside the door, painted with leaves and tiny flowers. Seeds had been scattered on its tray. The woodcutter fed birds. The old crow shivered, then lifted from her shoulder. He flew straight past the hut and landed on a wooden table where a scroll lay open under a stone. Kortana followed and bent close. The scroll was a prophecy, edges burned, ink fresh in places. She read the shaky words. "I will stop him with a magic blade." "A woodcutter must fell the trees to draw him out." The shimmering axe leaned against the table, runes glowing soft blue. The woodcutter was not destroying her forest for greed. He was baiting someone. He was hunting the stranger in the yurt. Footsteps crunched behind her. Kortana spun. A man in red robes stood at the tree line, hands folded, red eyes calm. "You are early," he said. "That is the small problem. The woodcutter knowing I am here — that second one is the complication. Nothing I cannot manage." The crow shrieked and flew. Kortana grabbed the scroll and ran. She had come for an axe and a heart to turn. She left with a secret that was not hers, an enemy who now knew her face, and the certain truth that the woodcutter was already her ally — if she could reach him before the man in red did.