Maren Thornwell's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Maren was halfway to the houses when the ground shivered under her boots. She stopped. Behind her, back at the shrine, a low grinding sound rose from beneath the altar. Not the old hum. Something new. Something climbing. She turned and saw the carved wolves on the shrine steps trembling in their stone. Whatever she had pulled loose was moving toward the surface, and she did not know its shape. The little feathered animal shot out of the trees and pressed against her leg. It shook. Its ears lay flat. Maren looked at the tablet in her arms, then at the shrine. If the thing broke free while her back was turned, it would follow her into the village. It would reach the houses before she ever reached the elders. She made herself walk back up the steps. The altar had cracked down its middle. Cold air poured from the gap. Deep inside, something scraped, wet and slow. Maren set the tablet on the altar's flat stone and read the letters she could not read. The old blood, the god had said. A name older than yours. Her mother's name. Gareth had promised her that truth, and she did not have it yet. The scraping grew louder. A pale limb, thin as a root, reached up through the crack and felt along the stone. Maren grabbed the healing herb that grew wild at the shrine's base, the plant the elders left as offering. She crushed the leaves in her fist. Their sharp green smell filled the air. She had watched an elder press this herb to the door once, whispering, before the hum went quiet for a season. She did not have the words. She had the herb and the tablet and her own two hands. She jammed the crushed leaves into the crack, over the reaching limb. The limb flinched back. Then she took the tablet and pressed it flat across the broken altar, gold letters down, sealing the gap she had opened. The grinding stopped. The wet scraping faded. The cold air thinned and went still. Maren stood over the altar, breathing hard. She had shut the thing back under. But the tablet lay on the stone now, and it was staying there. It was the only lid heavy enough to hold. Her proof was buried again by her own hands. The feathered animal crept up beside her and sniffed the sealed crack. Maren looked down at her empty arms. She had gone to the shrine to bring the elders something they could hold. She was walking back with nothing but a name and a story. She wiped her hands on her coat. The elders would not believe her word. So she would find the one man who had promised her the rest of it. Gareth knew her mother's name. Maren started down the steps to make him say it.