Luna Brightwood's Arc

Chapter 14 of 22

Silvain kept the sword raised until the trees stopped moving. Luna stood in the wet grass with the camera against her chest. She had a clear frame of the cloaked man now, and a soft frame of the collar mark, and both were trapped inside a memory card in a field no one could reach. If she waited to hand-deliver them, he would strike first. If she sent them wrong, the beasts would find whoever opened the file. "I need to get these out," she said. "Not later. Now. People who can act on them." Silvain sheathed the blade. The field dimmed. "He watches the roads. He watches the sky. Any rider you send, he will meet." "Then I don't send a rider." Luna crouched and opened her bag. She pulled out the small backup drive she used for field copies and a folded card she had never used: a printed address for the castle archivist, given to her the week she arrived. She copied the two frames onto the drive. She wrote three lines on the back of the card. Cloaked man. Red trim. Sends the horned beasts. She kept it short. Long notes got read slowly. "The owl flies higher than his beasts can climb. The dragon carries weight. Send them together. He can't follow both." Silvain looked at the pale owl on the branch, then at the small purple dragon on her shoulder. "He will try." "Let him try two places at once." Luna tied the drive to the owl's leg with a strip of cloth. She wrapped the card around it. To the small dragon she gave a decoy: a blank card, sealed, tied the same way. "Different routes. Whichever arrives, arrives. If he chases the decoy, the real one gets through. If he chases the real one, the owl outclimbs him." She looked at Silvain. "Can the gold one screen them out?" Silvain whistled once. The gold dragon lifted from the field and climbed above the mist, wings wide, mismatched eyes bright. It banked over the treeline where the cloaked man had walked. From the trees, a lattice of pale light flared open across the canopy, a bright web strung between the branches. It hung there a moment, a trap laid for anything that flew. The gold dragon burned through the edge of it. The lattice snapped and fell in cooling sparks. The pale owl was already gone north. The small purple dragon banked east and vanished into cloud. Luna lowered the empty bag. Her hands shook once and stopped. The photos were moving. She could not call them back. Silvain watched the sky where the lattice had been. "He knew you would send them. He was ready." He looked down at her. "He will come for us before either bird lands."