Rae's Arc

Chapter 6 of 5

The six hunters were bound to her now, and the leader guarded the tree. But that night, a new danger showed itself. The glowing boy sat by a high window in the spire. His gold hands lit the broken stones. From the forest floor, that light climbed the redwood like a torch. Rae stood beside him and looked down. Anyone with eyes could follow it straight up to the children. She pulled the boy back from the window. She stood the mothers at every gap in the wall and hung blankets. The glow leaked through anyway. Cloth could not hold it. Wood could not hide it. One clear night would bring men and cages to her door. Rae had one thing left that men could not touch. She went alone to the lowest room, where the old stones met the redwood limb. She knelt on the cold floor. She closed her eyes and reached into the dark under the tree, into the place she never spoke of. "Mortheus," she said. "I need you." The air went cold. A shape rose from the shadow in the corner. Bones under a black hood. Two blue lights burned where eyes should be. Its long gray fingers stretched toward her, then stopped. The undead thing bowed its skull to her and to no one else. It was hers, and she was the only voice it heard. "They will find the children by their light," Rae said. "Hide us from the sky." Mortheus did not speak. It reached one hand toward the spire above them. The blue eyes flared. Rae felt the cold pour up through the stones, through the walls, up to the broken crown. She held her breath and did not move. Above her, the mothers cried out. The boy's light did not go dark. Instead it turned inward. The glow stayed warm inside the walls, but from outside, the spire went black. Rae climbed the stairs fast. She ran to the high window and looked down at the forest floor. Nothing shone back. The redwood stood dark against the night. The light was still there in the boy's hands, still on the walls, but the sky could not see it. She had cast a shroud over the whole spire, and no searcher would climb toward a tree that gave off nothing. Rae let out her breath. The children were safe from watching eyes. But Mortheus stayed at the base of the stairs, waiting, its blue gaze fixed on her. She had called it up from the dark, and the dead do not go back for free. She had asked a god for a favor. Now she owed one, and she already knew the price: she had to help him break his skeletal curse.