Nina Redfeather's Arc

Chapter 11 of 12

Nina rode the snow trail to the mountain before dawn. The red book was buried in her coat, its pages marked with every line her family had written about the door. Her father had been a keeper. Her grandmother too. Neither had left instructions for the sealing. Nina knew the blood came through her. She did not know the words that put it to work. She reached the cave and stepped inside. The door stood open at the back of the cave. Light leaked from the side that climbed toward the peak. Darkness poured from the side that fell toward the depths. Along the open edge, shapes pressed and twisted. Half-formed things, neither in the world nor out of it. They clawed at the threshold but could not cross. The carved wood groaned under their weight. Nina understood then. Her mistake had trapped them here. A second shadow slid across the floor to meet her own. White eyes opened in it. Umbral Nightshade, the demon she had freed three nights before, the one who had warned her the door still gaped. He had chosen her blood on purpose. Now he lifted a clawed hand from the stone. "You came back, keeper," he hissed. "The others grow stronger. Close it, or they come through." "I don't know the rite," Nina said. Her voice shook. "My father wrote nothing down." "The words are not in the book." The demon's shape rippled closer. "They are in the blood. Spill it on the wood. The blood remembers what the mind forgets." Nina pulled her knife. She knelt at the base of the open door and set the blade to her palm. The trapped shapes shrieked and strained. She hesitated. If the demon lied, she gave her blood for nothing. But he had told her the truth about the door before. She drew the knife across her skin. Pain flared. Blood welled dark in the cold. She pressed her bleeding hand flat against the wood. For a moment nothing moved. Then the carved lines drank the blood. Heat climbed her arm. Words rose in her throat, words she had never learned, old and heavy. She spoke them without choosing to. The door shuddered. The light and the dark drew back inside. The trapped shapes wailed and were swallowed. The wood swung shut with a crack that shook the cave. Nina fell back, gripping her cut hand. The door was sealed. Silence filled the cave. She had done what her bloodline was made to do. "It is closed," Umbral Nightshade said. His eyes stayed on her. "But you spilled keeper's blood on the lock. The shadow will know. The one that first sent you dreams." His shape sank into the stone and vanished. Nina stared at the sealed wood. She had closed the door at last. But the demon's warning gripped her cold. The shadow that started it all had felt her blood. And now it knew exactly where she was.