Lunara Silverleaf's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

By the second morning north, Lunara's rations were half gone and the trail climbed into brush she did not know. The feather in her hand still pulled north, steady as a held breath. She had counted on foraging. She had not counted on the world going gray. The berries on the low canes could have been ripe or rotten or poison. She could not tell red from black anymore. She ate a dry crust and kept walking. By noon she was light-headed. She knelt by a cluster of bright fruit, held one to her nose, and could not decide. She thought of her sister's sash, which she could no longer picture. She thought of six days minus two. She put the berry down. A dog found her first. A stout thing, short-legged, broad-chested, with a wrinkled face and a bright bark. Behind the dog came an old man in a coat of dark feathers, leaning on a staff topped with a small animal skull. He looked at the berries by her knee. "Those will stop your heart by sundown," he said. "The ones two bushes over will feed you." "I can't see the difference," Lunara said. "I traded the color for a direction." The old man's mouth twitched. He introduced himself as Aldric Thornwood and did not ask what direction. He walked her along the slope and named things by shape and smell instead of shade. Round leaf, three points, milk in the stem — leave it. Long leaf, rough underside, sour smell — safe. The dog nosed each plant as he spoke, as if confirming. Lunara filled the front of her cloak with what he pointed to. He watched her hands shake and said nothing about it. At dusk he brought her to a shelter she had not seen from the trail: a dome of living willow, its branches bent and lashed into walls, the floor swept, a small fire pit dug at the center. "Ours," he said, and did not explain who ours was. Inside, he showed her a second cache — dried strips of root, hard cheese wrapped in cloth, a skin of water. He filled a pouch and pressed it into her hands. "Three days' worth. Eat the fresh first." When she tried to thank him, he shook his head. "Word came up from the grove. We know what's missing. Some of us gather now in a hall of ice further north. If your road fails, go there." She slept a few hours under the willow and left before dawn with the pouch heavy at her hip and the feather tugging her on. The hunger problem was solved. But Aldric had said we, and word came up, and a hall of ice — and she understood, walking, that the theft was larger than three people in a snow-buried cottage. Someone had wanted the wellspring badly enough that her people were already hiding.