Raven Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 11

Raven Blackwood packed her bow at dawn, ready to hunt the rarest tome in the ruins past the mountains. The book had haunted her for years. Scholars swore it never existed. She knew better. She tightened the strap on her quiver and reached for the door. Then the first thunderclap hit. She stopped. Rain slammed the tall windows of her home, a Victorian house stuffed floor to ceiling with old books. Her black Labrador pressed against her leg and whined. On the porch, a storm wall swallowed the peaks whole. Trails she needed were already gone behind grey water. "Not today," Raven whispered. She dropped her pack by the door. The climb to the ruins took two days of clear weather. A storm like this could rage for one day or five. If she waited blind, she might lose her whole window before the mountain passes froze. She needed to know how long the sky would hold her prisoner. Her eyes found the shelf by the stairs. There sat an old storm glass, metal filigree wrapped around a sealed jar of liquid and crystals. Her grandmother had used it to read the weather before any newspaper did. Raven had never trusted it. Today she had nothing else. She carried it to the lamp. Inside, the fluid churned thick and cloudy. White crystals climbed high toward the top, a dense forest of spikes. She remembered the rule her grandmother taught her. Cloudy liquid meant a storm. Crystals near the surface meant hard cold coming fast. The reading was bad. Worse, the crystals were still growing. Her barn owl shifted on its perch above the shelf. Its emerald eyes caught the lamplight. The bird's black feathers were slick, as if it too had felt the wet air change. It clicked its beak at the window, restless. Raven watched the glass for an hour. The crystals did not shrink. They thickened. That meant the storm would not break tomorrow. It meant the cold front behind it would seal the high passes within days. She made her choice. Waiting for clear skies was a trap. By the time the storm passed, the frost would lock the ruins away until spring. She could not afford a lost season. The tome had waited long enough. Raven pulled a map from a drawer and spread it under the lamp. She traced the low river route, the one her grandmother marked for foul weather. It was longer. It was wet. But it stayed below the freeze line and reached the ruins from the south. She would not wait out the storm. She would go through it. She repacked the bow, swapped her boots for the tall waxed pair, and wrapped the storm glass in cloth to carry. The owl spread its wings. The dog barked once at the door. Raven opened it to the rain. The warm, dry safety of the bookshop fell behind her. Ahead lay the flooded low road and a two-day walk into the cold.