Nessa Rootmark's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

Nessa left the practice grounds before dawn. She needed distance from the pavilion, from the torn banner still lying where she'd dropped it, from the eyes that had already decided what kind of archer she was. The Everlasting Forest stretched beyond the clan's borders, and somewhere in its depths lay the old sites—places her instructors mentioned but never showed them. The greatest archers had trained there once, before the clan built pavilions and hung banners. She wanted to see what they'd left behind. She walked for three hours before the trees changed. The trunks grew wider here, their bark rough with age. Light filtered through the canopy in soft columns that touched the forest floor like fingers. Then she saw it—a clearing where the undergrowth had been kept back by something other than time. At its center stood a target, its wood posts gray and cracked, arrows still lodged in the outer rings. Not new arrows. Some had shafts so weathered they'd split along the grain. She counted seventeen of them, all grouped in a tight band around the edge. None in the center. Beyond the target sat a small building, half-swallowed by vines but still standing. The door hung crooked on its frame. Inside, she found a stone floor worn smooth in paths between the door and a single window that faced the target. Sleeping platforms lined one wall. A shelf held three bows, their strings long rotted away. She lifted one and felt how light it was—made for speed, not power. This had been a place where archers came to wait, to practice, to face something that required more than skill. The arrows outside told the story. Seventeen archers had taken their shot and missed the center. Then they'd left their arrows behind and walked away. Nessa stood at the threshold and looked out at the target. She understood now what the sacrifice had been—not blood or treasure, but the willingness to miss in front of no one but themselves. To take a shot with enough time to feel every moment of its flight, to watch it land wide, and to leave the evidence standing. Her chest tightened. She'd been afraid of slow misses because the clan would see them. But these archers had faced something harder—they'd had to see themselves clearly, with no crowd to blame or impress. She walked to the target and pulled her bow from her shoulder. One arrow. She nocked it, drew, and held the string longer than her instinct screamed to release. The shot landed in the outer ring, four fingers from center. She didn't retrieve it. She left it standing with the others and walked back toward the clan grounds, carrying the weight of what she'd finally let herself see.