Orla Oakes's Arc

Chapter 4 of 3

Orla rode the open road toward the ridge. The iron box weighed on the elk's flank. Fenwick walked beside her stirrup, his damp coat heavy with morning fog. She had a name now, or near enough. A house. A limping mount. A reason to steal her map. But Nadia's warning still rang in her ears. Accuse the wrong rider, and she lost her only lead. Halfway up, Fenwick stopped. He crouched by a fresh set of tracks in the mud. "These aren't your limp," he said. He pointed. "Left front lands clean. No favor. Two riders came down this road." Orla dismounted. Her knees cracked. She read the prints the way she read old deeds, line by line. He was right. The clean tracks led down from the ridge. The limping tracks came up from town, then turned back. "The founding family's elk went down the hill," she said. "But it carried no thief. Someone rode it out and brought it home." A hound broke from the brush. Lean, gray, pale eyes glowing in the fog. It froze, hackles up, then bolted toward the pond. Orla knew that dog. It slept at the schoolteacher's door. They found Nadia at the water's edge again, basket on her arm, cutting glowing lily stems. Her chalk-white hands did not stop when Orla approached. "You climbed the hill," Nadia said. "I told you to climb it alone." "I never reached the top," Orla said. "The limping elk carried no rider down. Someone borrowed it. Someone who knew whose print I would find. Someone who could send me up that hill to accuse the wrong house." Nadia's shears paused. Fenwick said nothing. He watched her hands. In a room of suspects, he stayed silent until one face broke. Nadia's broke now. Her fingers tightened on the shears. "You keep their children," Fenwick said quietly. "You keep their stables. You could take that elk any night and no one would ask." Nadia set the basket down. "They pay me to teach," she said. "They do not know their own history. But I read the old records, Orla. Years ago. Before you locked them away." Her voice stayed soft. "The confession names no founder they'd want spoken. I took the map to keep it buried. The elk was only a mask." Orla's chest went cold. Not the family. The teacher. "You sent me up the ridge to die accusing the wrong people." "I sent you somewhere safe." Nadia pushed her glasses up. "The map is gone, Orla. Burned. You have a confession that proves nothing now." Orla stared at her. The thief had a face at last. But the proof she needed was ash. She had won the truth and lost the map in the same breath. The confession alone could name no one. And Nadia knew exactly what the buried words said.