Nym's Arc

Chapter 11 of 41

Nym walked with her fire held high, but the forest fought her. Every path bent back on itself. Twice she found the same split tree, marked by the same broken branch. Her flame lit only a few steps ahead. Beyond that lay black trees and no way out. Magnus leaned against a trunk, breathing hard. "We have circled again," he said. His voice had lost its steadiness. Nym's heart sank. They were lost. The black cat had padded beside her the whole way. Now it stopped. Its ears turned. It stared into the dark and did not move. "Come on," Nym said. The cat ignored her. It stepped off the path and slipped between two trees. Nym reached for it and missed. "Wait." She followed. Magnus pushed off the trunk and came after her. The cat moved fast and sure. It did not circle. It walked a straight line, tail high, as if it knew the way. Nym's fire showed her its glossy back weaving through the trunks. She stopped trusting her own eyes and trusted the cat instead. Magnus stumbled behind her, one hand on her shoulder. "How does it know?" Nym asked. "I stopped asking such things long ago," Magnus said. "Follow it." The trees thinned. The air changed. Nym felt cool grass under her boots instead of roots. Her fire spread wider now, because there was room for it to spread. She stepped out of the forest and into an open clearing under the night sky. The cat sat down in the middle and licked its paw. Ahead stood a ring of tall stones. They were old, cracked, and softened with moss. Carved runes covered their gray faces. Nym raised her flame and the light fell across the marks. Some she had seen before. She had seen them on her ring. She had seen them glow beneath her own skin. Magnus stopped at her side. He stared at the stones and his face went pale. He did not speak for a long moment. "This is it," he said at last. "This is where I last saw her. Where Drasila stood before the battle." Nym walked toward the ring. Her boots pressed the wet grass flat. She reached the nearest stone and pressed her palm to the cold rune. Nothing happened. But she felt the weight of the place settle over her. Her mother had stood here three hundred years ago. Her mother had made a promise here. "What did she promise you?" Nym asked. Magnus stepped into the ring behind her. His golden gown caught her firelight. He looked at the center stone, the one marked with a carved circle inside a circle. "She promised she would come back," he said quietly. "And she asked me to wait for someone. She never said who." He turned and looked at Nym. "I think she meant you." Nym's flame trembled in her hand. The forest was behind her now. Whatever answer she had crossed it for waited inside this ring of stones.