Nyx Whisperwind's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The imp lunged for Nyx's borrowed girl-face. She dropped into her cat shape and bolted from the frost-cracked stones. The gods laughed behind her. She had broken their secret, but they had handed her a hungrier one. Until she mastered the imp, they would never name her the greatest trickster. They would only smile. She ran to the one hunter who understood hidden things. Fennrick Vex tracked marks for the Guild by day. In truth he was small and soft, with big ears and a tucked tail, and every animal trusted him on sight. She found him crouched over three finger-drags on a door where children slept. "That thing you chase left these too," Nyx said, standing up as a girl. "It wants my true shape. It takes whatever finds it first." Fennrick did not look up. "Then don't let it find you." He pressed a thumb to the scratches. "Give it something else." Nyx stared at him. She borrowed shapes, but she had never given one away on purpose. The imp hunted a true shape. So she needed to be the last thing it wanted to catch. She went to the fortress on the mountain. Saraphillia sorted her broken myths into boxes. Her red hair glowed faintly in the dark room. She did not turn when Nyx climbed through the window. "You brought it here," Saraphillia said. "I want to trap it, not feed it." Nyx set the grinning imp on the table. "Help me." Saraphillia lifted an empty lime-green box down. "It wants the first shape it finds. So make yourself last." She slid the box across. "Fill this with a shape it wants more." Nyx understood. Outside, a wisp-fairy circled the hills, so clear that Guild scouts never saw her. Nyx caught the little glow in her hands and borrowed her shape. The fairy never noticed one was missing. Nyx poured that borrowed shine into the empty box. The imp turned. Its black eyes left Nyx's face. It smelled the fairy-shape, brighter and truer than anything she wore. It climbed toward the box, grinning, hungry. "Now," Saraphillia said. Nyx slammed the lid. The imp thrashed inside, chewing the borrowed glow instead of her. She held the box shut until it went still. It did not vanish. It stayed, fed and small, and hers to carry. Below the mountain, a gathering of travelers built their fires. Nyx walked back to the frost-cracked stones with the sealed box under her arm. She held it up. "I lost this once," she told the gods. "Now I keep it. It eats what I give it. It answers to me." The gods stopped smiling. One leaned forward, then back. "Not yet the greatest," it said. "But no longer ours." Nyx grinned. She had mastered the thing. Yet the fairy she robbed now flickered near the travelers' fires, hunted and shapeless, and the Guild scouts had begun to see her.