Raina's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The wolf led them higher into the hills, and the cold pressed harder. Raina's legs shook. Every step she took, her willow blade pulled at her, tracing the poison's roots north toward the cairn. But the tracing drained her. Her magic thinned with each mile, like water running out of a cracked jar. She had no fire, no roof, no ground she trusted. Taurus carried her pack, but he could not carry her strength. "We need to stop," she said. "If I keep spending, I'll have nothing left for the source." Taurus pointed past a ridge. "Water below. Flowers around it. I remember this place." They climbed down to a broad lake, clear as glass, ringed with pale blooms even in the snow. Raina knelt at the edge and drank. The water warmed her throat. She felt a thread of magic return, faint but real. Then a shadow crossed the lake. Something large moved above the far trees, and the crystal light off its wings hurt her eyes. "Dragon," Taurus said. He set his feet. His forearms flared blue on their own. "Quartz-scaled. It hunts anything warm." The thing turned toward the water and the heat rising off Raina's body. She had no strength to run. Her blade felt like lead in her hand. Something dropped between them and the dragon. It was no bigger than a child, black-shelled, with four wings — two soft like a wolf's, two thin like a bat's. It landed hard and did not flinch. "Down. Both of you," it said. Short. Flat. "The bright one sees heat. Kill your fire, bullman." Taurus stared. "My hands don't listen." "Then cover them." The creature spread all four wings wide. Frost bloomed across the shell. The heat around Raina's body vanished, pulled into the small figure like breath into a cold lung. The dragon circled, lost the scent, and swept back over the trees. Silence returned to the lake. The creature folded its wings. One caught on a low branch and tore free with a rip. It cursed under its breath. "Roach," it said, before Raina could ask. "I pull heat. Store it. Keeps me hidden on jobs." It looked at Raina's thin, gray face, then at her blade. "You're burning out. I felt it from the ridge." "I trace the poison," Raina said. "It empties me." Roach crouched and pressed one clawed hand to the lakebed. Warmth flowed back into Raina, steady now, fed slow from Roach's own store. Her magic filled. Her hands stopped shaking. She could reach the cairn. "Why help us?" she asked. Roach stood. "Going north myself. Hunting the ones who built me. Took something of mine." A pause. "We share a road. That's all." It did not smile. Raina held its orange gaze and could not tell friend from foe. But she had shelter now, and strength, and a way to the god. She rose. "Then we walk together."