Naru Silverfox's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The shrine's mouth stood open at last. Naru and Nina ran the final slope, the pixie weaving above them. But an old woman sat cross-legged in the doorway, filling it. White furs swallowed her thin frame. Her eyes were pale and fixed on nothing. Behind her, names covered the ice wall, each one carved deep and crooked. "Let us through," Naru said. "The princess is inside. We don't have time." The old woman did not move. "You come fast," she said. "Answer first." Her voice was flat, giving nothing. One hand rested on a small blade. Fresh ice shavings lay in her lap. Nina stepped forward, tail bristling. "We'll walk past you." "Try," the woman said. She turned her blind face toward Nina. "The last one tried. Her name is on the wall." She did not point. She did not need to. Naru caught her sister's arm. She studied the carved names. One sat apart, near the hinge. Orla Eirik. The woman's own name, cut in her own hand. Naru understood then. This keeper had answered wrong once, and taken the seat herself. She was not guarding the door for pride. She was waiting to be freed from it. "Ask," Naru said. Orla tilted her head. "I hold what I cannot keep. The longer I keep it, the less I have. What am I?" Nina opened her mouth. Naru pressed her hand harder, a warning. A wrong answer went on the wall. Naru thought of the three nights she had carried Nina's blame. Of how waiting had eaten at her. Of the woman inside, searching, running out of it. "Time," Naru said. Orla went still. The blade slipped from her fingers to the ice. For a long moment she said nothing. Then her shoulders dropped, as if a weight had left them. "Right," she said. "First one. In all these years." She set both hands on the ground and pushed herself up. Her legs shook. Naru reached to steady her. The old woman let herself be held, then stepped aside from the door. "It's yours now," Orla said. "The seat, if you answer wrong. The road, if you walk away." She pulled her furs tight and shuffled past them, out into the snow, not looking back. Naru did not watch her go. She turned to the open dark of the shrine. "Noria," she called. No answer came. The three of them went in. The frozen altar stood at the center, its waterfall caught mid-fall in sheets of ice. The runes on the pillar glowed faint. But the chamber was empty. No princess. On the altar lay a single ice flower, placed with care, and beside it a line traced in frost, half-melted. Naru touched the flower. Still cold. Set down within the hour. "She was here," Nina said quietly. "We missed her." "No," Naru said. "Someone led her out. And the door was watched the whole time."