Lilith Thornveil's Arc

Chapter 5 of 11

Teeth closed on Lilith's ear. She woke fast. The mouse-bat clung to her jaw, wings shaking. Selene was already up, one hand on the thorn arch. "The ridge watcher never came back," Selene said. Lilith grabbed her knife and ran out into the ravine. Wind pushed north, carrying Selene's scent up the rocks. Somewhere out there a hunter walked into that wind. And now something was moving toward the cavern from the wrong direction. She climbed to the ridge and saw the shape. Not a hunter. A woman, hunched, dragging one boot. Bright blue hair spilled to her waist, dark with sweat. She held a small brass compass, cracked across the face, and squinted at it though nothing in her eyes caught the light. A cartographer's tool. But this was no cartographer. The woman stopped when she saw Lilith. Her hand dropped to a blade at her thigh, then failed. She swayed. "Pool," she said. "Water heals. That right?" "Who told you that?" "A map." She lifted the compass an inch. "Bought it off a girl with ink hands. Lyra. She drew this whole ravine." Her knees buckled. Lilith caught her before she hit stone. The woman's skin burned. A black stain spread from her shoulder where an arrow had gone in and come out. "Poison," the woman said. "Slow one. I'm Shade." She almost smiled. "Don't ask me to demonstrate anything." Lilith understood the trap at once. This woman's trail led straight down to the cavern. If the hunter crossed that trail, he'd follow it to Selene. Two scents now, braided together, pointing home. She could drop this stranger here and keep the cavern clean. She thought about bullies and the people they chased. She hated the thought worse than the risk. "Hold my neck," she said, and lifted her. Shade weighed almost nothing. Lilith did not go straight down. She cut sideways along the ridge, dragging both their scents away from the cavern. At a fold in the rock she crushed her last red fruits and smeared the pulp in a wide fan pointing east. A false trail. Bait for a nose. Then she carried Shade down the hidden path and through the thorn arch. The pool glowed under the crystals. Lilith laid Shade at its edge and pressed water to the wound. The black stain slowed. Shade gasped, then breathed easier. Her eyes found the ceiling, then Selene, then Lilith. "You people always stare," she muttered, and passed out. Selene stood over them, still and quiet. "You brought her scent inside," she said. "I laid a false trail east." Lilith wrung water over the wound again. "It buys hours. Not the night." "He'll reach the fruit smear by dawn." Selene looked at the arch. "When he does, he'll know someone's diverting him. He'll stop trusting his nose and start hunting the ravine itself." Lilith nodded slowly. She had saved a life and lost her best trick. Now the hunter would come looking for the trickster.