Macey Redcap's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Knowing the crown sat at the ring's heart was not enough. Macey needed to know how she had lost it in the first place. So at dawn she crept to the north edge, where an old stone well stood half-swallowed by moss. Her oldest promises lived in that soil. If anything would tell her the truth, it was here. She pressed her ear to the well's worn rope and listened. The water below murmured back in the voice of the spores she had once fed. It showed her the day she left — the dying elk, her hand on its flank, the ring unguarded for one slow hour. And it showed her something else. A dead branch just past the tree line, where an iron crown now hung dripping dark sap onto the grass. The usurper's mark. It had been creeping outward while she grieved. Macey staggered back. The well had answered plainly. She had not been overthrown by strength. She had been overthrown by absence, and the old spirit had been ready for years, waiting for one open hour. The iron crown on the branch proved it meant to spread further still. She spent the rest of the day dragging beams to the north edge and lashing a small covered bridge across the dry creek there. Inside it she laid out the scale, a sketch of the iron crown, and a jar of well-water. A workroom. A place to study him. She finally knew how she had fallen. Now she could begin to plan how he would.