Kortana's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Kortana ran with the scroll clutched tight, the crow flying low beside her. She did not stop until she reached the clearing behind the woodcutter's hut. There she unrolled the prophecy on a flat stone and read the burned edges again. New words had bled into the page, dark and wet. "The crown wakes when the guardian's foot crosses the threshold." Her hands went cold. She had already stepped inside the yurt. She turned and looked through the trees. The bright yurt glowed in the dusk, lanterns swinging, smoke curling from its peak. But something new stood beside it now. A tall stone tower had pushed up from the dirt, runes glowing soft blue along its sides. Moss climbed its base as if it had grown there for a hundred years. It had not been there an hour ago. Kortana crept closer, keeping low. Around the yurt, a ring of carved tablets had risen from the soil. Each one showed a small crown and, beneath it, a shape she knew was meant to be her. Her braid. Her hands. A thin line drawn from her wrist to the crown. The scroll was right. The ritual had started the moment she stepped inside. She pressed a finger to her wrist. A tiny cut she had not noticed beaded red. The tower pulsed in time with it. The crown was feeding on her, drop by drop, even from here. The crow landed on the scroll and tapped one word with his beak. "Sever." Kortana understood. The bleeding would not stop on its own. She needed the rune-marked axe, not later, not before the full moon — tonight. She tore a strip from her sleeve and bound her wrist tight. The pulse in the tower slowed, but it did not stop. She rolled the scroll and tucked it into her belt. The plan she had carried in was gone. A new one took its place, sharp and simple. Find the woodcutter. Show him the tablets with her face on them. Make him swing his axe for her before the man in red found them both. She ran toward the hut, the crow on her shoulder, her bound wrist throbbing like a second heart.