Nina Redfeather's Arc

Chapter 2 of 12

Inside the hut, the air smelled of smoke and dried herbs. Nina stood on the crooked floor and waited. The old woman rocked in her wooden bucket, gripping her oak staff. This was the woman who had confirmed the shadow was real. She was also the only one who knew what it wanted. Nina had climbed the ladder to get that answer. Now she meant to get it. "Tell me what the shadow wants," Nina said. The old woman smiled with her few teeth. "It wants what was lost. Feed the fire and it flies. Starve it and you sleep forever." She tapped her staff. "That is your answer, child." Nina frowned. The words made no sense. "That's not an answer. That's a riddle." "Every answer is a riddle to a small mind." The old woman turned back to her pot and stirred. Nina wanted to shout. She had walked through the snow for this. She had climbed into a hut on chicken legs. Riddles would not tell her mother the truth. Riddles would not stop the shadow at the foot of her bed. She looked around the room. A fireplace stood cold and black in the corner. Dried logs sat beside it. "Feed the fire and it flies," Nina whispered. She looked at the old woman, then at the empty hearth. Maybe the riddle was not a puzzle to think about. Maybe it was a thing to do. Nina knelt by the fireplace. She stacked the logs the way her uncle had taught her. She found a box of matches on the stone and struck one. The flame caught. It climbed the wood and grew tall. The old woman stopped stirring. She watched. The fire did not burn like a normal fire. It brightened until Nina had to shield her eyes. Then a shape rose out of the flames. Wings spread wide. A great bird of fire lifted from the hearth, its feathers burning orange and gold. It filled the room with heat and light. It fixed its eyes on Nina and let out a cry like a horn. Nina fell back. She knew it at once. The thin dark shape from her dreams had been this bird, hidden, waiting. The shadow was the burning bird before it caught fire. "You woke it," the old woman said. She did not smile now. "The shadow wanted flame. You gave it flame. Now it is free, and it belongs to no one until its debt is paid." "What debt?" Nina asked. The bird beat its wings once and settled on the rafters, watching her. The old woman leaned on her staff. "It carries you now, child. And a thing that carries you always asks where you are going." She pointed her staff at the door. "You solved the riddle. But you cannot send it back. You must take it home, and you must decide what to do with it." Nina stared at the burning bird. She had her answer. She wished she did not.