Lena Marsh's Arc

Chapter 16 of 24

They crawled out from under the folded frostwood after the sniffing thing passed. The strands on their wrists were already dimming. Lena led them up the slope toward the ridge. The needle in her pocket pulled her forward. Her father was on the other side of that ridge, waiting. They reached the crest at first light. Six men stood in the snow with crossbows raised. Village men. Hild's men. Lena knew two of them by name from the market. "Down," the tallest one said. "Weapons in the snow." Forge did not move. Nell stepped in front of Lena. The fox flattened its ears and hissed. "You don't understand," Lena said. She held her empty hands out. "There are things behind us. Fae things. They have our scent. If you stand here you die too." "Governor's orders," the tall one said. "Banishment writ. All four of you. Weapons down." "Listen to me." Lena's voice cracked. "Something is coming up this ridge. Minutes. Please." A second man moved behind Nell and grabbed the fox by the scruff of its emerald tail. The fox yelped. Nell turned. His eyes flared green. Three crossbows swung to his chest. "Nell," Linny said. Flat. "Not now." Nell's eyes dimmed. He let them take his knife. Forge dropped his hammer in the snow. Lena knelt and put the silver needle deep in her coat lining before a hand closed on her arm. They were roped at the wrists and marched off the ridge, down through the tree line, toward the village. Lena kept looking back. The men did not. "They'll come to the ridge and find nothing," she told the tall one. "Then they'll come to the village. Do you understand what I'm saying?" He did not answer. They were brought through the back gate of the governor's estate and down a stone stair Lena had never seen. The cell had a dirt floor and one barred window at ground level. The men shoved them in and locked the door. The fox was not with them. Lena did not ask where it had been taken. Hild was not there. A guard said he would come at midday. Lena sank against the cold wall. Her hands went still in her lap, the way they always did when she was afraid. She thought of her father in his bed, the shirt unfinished, the needle in her pocket useless behind iron. She thought of the village above them, sleeping, and the woods behind the ridge, and what was walking out of those woods now toward the houses. She started to cry. Quiet, then not quiet. Nell sat down next to her and pulled Lena's head into his chest. He did not say it would be all right. He only held her. "He's going to die in that bed," Lena cried. "And they're all going to die up there. And no one is listening." "I'm listening," Nell said. Above them, a bell began to ring.