Nym's Arc

Chapter 32 of 41

The Queen's map told Nym where to go, but not how to reach it. A mountain shaped like sharp teeth. A cave with a runed arch. A week's ride, if she took the right roads. Nym stood in her chamber that night, the map open on her bed. One wrong turn would cost them days. Every wasted day let Zarool heal. She needed someone who had walked this land before, someone who might remember the way. So she brought the map to her mother's door and knocked. Drasila opened it. She was the witch who had spent three hundred years sealed behind a stone door, freed only weeks ago. A white streak cut through her dark hair. Rune marks marked the backs of her hands, the same marks that glowed beneath Nym's skin. "I don't know the roads," Nym said. "But Zeroth is my father's kingdom. You knew him." Drasila took the map. She sat at the window and stared down at the courtyard below, where people crossed in the torchlight. For a long moment she said nothing. Then her breath caught. "Zeroth," she said softly. "I had forgotten it. Three hundred years does that to you." She rose and pulled Nym into a quick, fierce hug. When she let go, her pale eyes were wet. A knock came. Titus stepped into the doorway in his dark green coat. He was the prince who had brought Nym the green cat and taught her to hold the light through calm. He had heard voices and come. "So you know where the cave lies," he said, half a smile on his face. "I know the path to the arch," Drasila said. "Your father's people carved a road for travelers on foot. It runs east past a broken bridge, then north along a river to the foot of the teeth." She traced the line with one marked finger. "The Queen read the ending in a book. But I walked the beginning myself, long ago. I can guide us to the arch." Nym leaned over the map and followed the line her mother drew. The vague week of guessing became a route she could see. The broken bridge. The river. The mountain. Her chest loosened. "Then we don't waste days," she said. "We leave at dawn." Titus set a hand on the doorframe. A green cat with mossy fur and ivy trailing its legs slipped past his boots and jumped onto the bed, curling on the map's corner. "Take him," Titus said. "He keeps you calm. You'll need the light steady when you reach that arch. Only light will open it." Nym looked at the cat, then at her mother. The path was set. The mount waited in the stables. The only thing left was the road itself. "Rest tonight," Drasila told her. "Tomorrow we ride for Zeroth." Nym rolled the map and held it to her chest. For the first time, she knew exactly where she was going.