Princess Nymeria's Arc

Chapter 4 of 32

The door swung open. Nymeria stood before the child's parents could speak. She kept the little girl's hand in hers. The wolf rose too, black as a hole in the floor, and set itself between Nymeria and the door. The mother came in first. She carried a net full of fish. She saw the horns and dropped the net. The fish slid across the planks. Behind her, the father filled the doorway. His hands were rough from rope and water. His eyes went to the horns, then to his daughter's small fingers wrapped in Nymeria's. "Get away from her," the father said. His voice shook. He reached for a fishing spear leaning by the wall. "She fed me," Nymeria said. She did not raise her voice. "Nothing more. She was kind when no one else was." She let go of the girl's hand and stepped back. She showed them her empty palms. "I won't touch her again." The girl ran to her mother's legs. "She's not a monster, Mama. The wolf likes her." The father lifted the spear. The wolf lowered its head. A growl rolled from its chest, low and steady. Nymeria touched its shoulder. "No," she told it. The wolf stopped. It sat. That stopped the father too. He stared at the beast obeying her. He had grown up on stories of her father's kind, the ones who twisted minds and stole hearts. Now a hunted woman knelt in his home and called her wolf off his family. "I have a charm," Nymeria said. "I could make you love me. I could make you help me. I won't. I want to leave the way I came. Free." The mother pulled her daughter close. She looked at Nymeria a long moment. "South," she said quietly. "Follow the water south. The forest starts past the last reeds and a witch lies in a tower she can help you. The hunters keep to the north." The father turned on her. "You'd help her?" "She could have taken our girl," the mother said. "She didn't." The father lowered the spear. He did not smile. He jerked his head toward the door. "Go. Before someone rings the bell take some fish with you." Nymeria bowed her head to the girl and her parents "Thank you for the bread and the fish." The child waved. She climbed down the ladder with the wolf behind her. The village stayed shut. But no bell rang. No hunter came. She had walked into a home full of fear and walked out with a direction and her name still her own. She reached the edge of the walkways. The water ran south, dark and slow. Somewhere past the reeds waited the forest, and past the forest, a witch who might open a door out of Shadowfen. Nymeria set her boots on the mud and followed the current.