Princess Elara and Prince Adrian's Arc

Chapter 5 of 3

The moss was gone. Elara stood in Rosemary's broken doorway and watched grey light touch the trees. Adrian would stay a beast past sunset. The frost had already killed the last plants by the stream. She had one day to find another way, and no plan at all. So she ran into the woods, because the woods were the only place she knew to look. She found two wolf pups shivering under a fallen log. The grey one pressed close to the black one. Both watched her with wide eyes. "Are you lost?" she asked. "No," said the black pup. "We know where we are." "We don't," said the grey one. His voice shook. "We can't find the pack. Milla says she isn't scared. She is." Milla snapped at him, then looked away. Elara knelt. "I'm looking for a cure. For a curse. Does your pack know these woods?" A shape rose behind the trees. It was a wolf, but huge, taller than Elara standing. His grey fur ran silver at the shoulders. His eyes caught hers and held steady. The pups did not run. They pushed toward him. "Noble," Milla said. The fear left her voice. Elara's hand went to the empty leather charm in her pocket. Nothing to throw. Nothing to fight with. She stayed still. "You are afraid," Noble said. His voice was low and flat. "Everything is, when it sees me." "I'm not here to hunt," Elara said. "I'm looking for a way to break a curse. A beast at sunset." Noble lowered his great head toward the pups. "These two left their pack. I was bringing them back." He looked at Elara. "You spent your medicine on the stone one. The collector. I smelled the burn." "How do you know that?" "The woods talk. Stone one has moss in his cracks. Your threads live in him now." Noble turned his head north. "He went to a house. Wood siding. Peaked roof. He is hurt and slow. He keeps the old debts there. Carved stones. Maybe the one that made your curse." Elara's heart jumped. "You'd show me?" "I owe the small ones a safe path home," Noble said. "Yours lies the same way. I will walk you to the edge. No farther. I don't enter houses." He moved through the trees. The pups trotted at his heels. Elara followed until the forest thinned. A house stood in the clearing, warm wood under a snug roof, one window glowing. A black bear slept across the porch, old and heavy, its coat dark as tar. "The guard," Noble said. "Past it is the stone one's hoard." He stopped at the tree line. "This is my edge." The pups watched her go. Elara stepped into the open. Adrian was still a beast, and would be by sunset. But the moss in the collector's body had left a trail, and the trail ended here. Behind the sleeping bear waited the debts. Maybe the curse that started them all.