Nell Voss's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Nell Voss knelt at the border stone and counted the fresh chips in the ice. Six new marks since last week. The Karsk clan cut one for every insult the Bree clan gave them, and the Bree cut back, and somewhere under all this scoring was the boy she used to love, sharpening a blade with the rest of them. She had come back to Grotto Ice to fix what her leaving had broken. Two months of walking between the two camps had earned her nothing. Both sides listened, nodded, and shut their doors. She had no name to drop, no cousin to vouch for her, no elder who would sit down at her word. Without one trusted voice inside either clan, every letter she sent would be read as meddling from a woman who had run away once already. A husky trotted out from the pines and stopped a spear's length from her. White coat, one blue eye, no collar. Nell knew the dog. It belonged to an old trapper who ran lines for both clans and took sides with neither — the only person in the grotto who still spoke to her when she came home. The husky dropped a folded scrap of hide at her boot and waited. Nell opened it. Three words, in the trapper's blocky hand: Come. Bring nothing. She pressed the hide flat against her knee and made herself breathe. A neutral guide was worth more than any cousin. If the trapper vouched for her inside one camp, the other would have to answer. Nell stood, brushed the snow from her coat, and followed the dog into the trees. By the time she reached the trapper's shack at dusk, she had an ally, and a name to speak at the Karsk gate before the next dawn.