Macaria's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The weeks passed slowly, and then all at once they were gone. Macaria woke to find her father waiting at her chamber door. He led her and Persephone through the dark halls of Gloomspire Castle, past silent guards, up stairs she had never climbed. Her heart beat fast. Today she would finally see the sun. They stopped in a wide cavern. Roots pierced the ceiling and coiled down the walls. At the center stood a great tree, its trunk hollowed into an arching doorway. Weathered bark framed a passage of pale light. Persephone touched the twisted roots and smiled softly. "My mother planted this," Persephone said. "Centuries ago. It grows in both worlds at once. Step through, and you stand under open sky." Macaria stared at the light. It was warm. She could feel it from here, brushing her face like breath. Her throat tightened. Everything she had wanted lay one step away. Hades turned to his wife first. He cupped Persephone's cheek and kissed her goodbye. "Six months," he murmured. "I will count each one." Persephone pressed her hand to his chest, then stepped through the doorway. The light swallowed her, and she was gone. Macaria moved to follow. Her father caught her hands. He lifted them and kissed her knuckles, slow and gentle. His amber eyes softened. "Before you go," Hades said, "I have a gift." Macaria waited. She expected a hell hound, one of the fierce beasts that guarded his gates. Instead her father raised one hand and spoke a low word. Shadow pooled at his feet. From it rose a wolf, sleek and dark as smoke, with watchful eyes that fixed on Macaria. It padded forward and sat at her side. She blinked. "A shadow wolf, Father? Not a hound?" Hades almost smiled. "A hound would frighten the living. This one walks unseen when it wishes. It will guard you in a world I cannot enter." He rested his hand on the wolf's dark head. "My reach ends at that tree. Its does not. When you are afraid, it will find you." Macaria understood then what the gift meant. Her father was letting her go, and sending part of the underworld with her so she would never be alone. She threw her arms around him. "Thank you," she whispered. He held her a moment, then stepped back. "Go. The sun is waiting." Macaria took a breath and walked through the hollow doorway. The wolf moved beside her, silent as shadow. Warmth struck her all at once. Grass, wind, the smell of green things. She opened her eyes to a bright field and a wide blue sky. Persephone stood ahead, arms open, laughing in the light. Macaria had left the underworld at last. But she stood in a strange, living world she had only read about. She knew nothing of its people, or how anyone here chose love. Her search would begin now, with a shadow wolf at her heel.