Nera Coldfen's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Nera left the lodge before the stars faded. She carried a small tarnished mirror in her coat and a folded silver wire for the serpent's bargain. She did not know the warlock's face. She did not know the warlock's name. If she knocked at dawn and met the wrong eyes, the trail would close for good. She came at the cottage from downwind through the reeds. A pale fence of lashed bones marked the last safe line. Past it, the mud lay open and bare. She crouched behind a vine-choked stone well a stone's throw from the crooked porch and waited. The serpent slid up the well's wet stones and coiled by her boot. She set the mirror on the lip of the well and tilted it until the cottage door slid into the glass. Then she waited for the lamp inside to lift. The door cracked open. A young man stepped onto the porch in a stained apron, sleeves wet to the elbow. He knelt by the cracked jar and tested the leak with one finger. His mouth moved in a small, careful chant. Nera watched his face in the tarnished glass and marked every line of it. A burn scar ran from his jaw to his ear. His left hand was missing the smallest finger. She did not move. She did not breathe loud. She let him finish his work and go back inside. Then she eased the mirror into her coat and backed through the reeds the way she had come. She had his face now. She had his hands. She had not been seen. By the time the sun cleared the flats, Nera was already drawing him on the back of her chart — scar, missing finger, the angle of his chant. The warlock had a face at last. The next dawn would not be a guess.