Nyx Whisperwind's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Nyx wore the twin-faced charm at her throat when she saw the wisp-fairy. It drifted near the frost-cracked stones, pale and lost. She had borrowed its shape to trap the imp, and now the fairy glowed too bright to hide. Worse, two Guild scouts stood on the ridge below. They pointed at the glow. They started to climb. If they followed the fairy to the stones, they would find the gods' contest and end it before Nyx could win. She dropped into her cat shape and ran down to Saraphillia's fortress. Saraphillia sat sorting broken myths into boxes. Her red hair glowed in the dim room. She did not look up. "Scouts are climbing," Nyx said. "They see the fairy. They'll find the gods." "Then move the fairy." Saraphillia set a cracked box on the shelf. "Not the scouts." Mara Thornshield stepped from behind the shelves. She ran the hidden trade network the Guild hunted. She had built roads the scouts could never find. She looked at Nyx the way she looked at every new danger, measuring it. "You made a light the Guild can see," Mara said. "Lights lead. So lead them wrong." "How?" "You fake scent trails with a fox and a fairy." Mara crossed her arms. "You have the fairy. Give them a trail that ends nowhere." Nyx understood. The scouts wanted the glow. She would give them a glow that walked away from the stones. She climbed back up. The fairy still hung there, and the scouts were close now, boots scraping rock. Nyx borrowed the fairy's shape herself. She wore its light. Then she ran, not to the stones, but along the cliff, away. The false glow bobbed ahead of her like a lure. The real fairy dimmed once she took its shape. The scouts saw only the moving light. They turned and followed her. She led them far, to a gully near the mountain route. There she dropped the borrowed shape and slipped into her cat form. The light vanished. The scouts stopped. They searched the empty rocks and found nothing. One cursed. They marked the gully as a dead end and turned back down the mountain, away from the stones. Nyx returned to the frost-cracked stones. The fairy was gone, faded back to wherever borrowed things go when no one wears them. No glow remained to draw a scout's eye. The contest was safe. The old gods watched her come. One leaned forward, the one whose face she had stolen. It did not smile now. "You hid your own light," it said. "Clever. But you spent it to run, not to fool us." Nyx sat among the stones. She had saved the contest, yet the gods still would not name her greatest. She had bought herself time. Now she needed a trick they could not name at all. She touched the twin-faced charm and began to think.