Matthew Sharpclaw's Arc

Chapter 6 of 12

The roc dropped through the gray sky and landed on a flat field of snow. The white spread out smooth and glittering, like a clean blanket pulled over the ground. Matthew slid down first. His boots punched through the crust. Redtail came next, then Rarespot, slower, her hand still tight on the feather. The man was already there. He stood at the center of the field in a dark hooded cloak that moved like smoke around him. Thin pale hands hung from the sleeves. Behind him, a tall iron staff was driven into the snow. Faint blue light crackled up its length in thin branching lines, like lightning trapped in metal. Matthew felt his stomach tighten. This was no clerk with a clipboard. This was someone with rank. "Vesna," the man said. His voice was soft. "You came." Matthew looked at his mom. He waited for her to laugh, or correct him, or say his mother's name out loud. She did not. Her ears stayed flat. Her tail did not move. She only stared at the staff, then at the man, and something in her face shifted into a shape Matthew had never seen. Cold. Still. A version of her he did not know. "Step away from the boy, Vesna," the man said. "You and I have old business." Rarespot drew a slow breath. She set her hand on Matthew's shoulder, gentle, and stepped past him. She did not deny the name. She walked out onto the snow toward the staff, and the lightning along the metal brightened as she came near, as if it knew her too. Matthew stood frozen with Redtail's hand on his arm. The wind picked up. The clean field was not clean anymore. Whoever Vesna was, she had walked these grounds before, and now she was walking back. The deadline still ticked. The snake still waited. But the woman crossing the snow ahead of him was a stranger wearing his mother's coat, and Matthew understood the shape of the next problem before it spoke.