Raven Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 11

The storm swallowed the river by nightfall. Raven walked the low road with her bow slung tight and the storm glass wrapped in cloth against her chest. Rain hid the ground. She could hear the river below her, fast and cold, but she could not see its edge. One step wrong meant the icy bank, then the fall. She stopped and knelt. Her gloved hand found the lip of the bank. The mud fell away into black water. Too close. She crept back and tried to read the slope with her fingers. The dark gave her nothing. She needed light, or she needed to turn around, and turning around meant losing the ruins until spring. Then she saw it. A glow leaked through the rain ahead. A low wooden shop sat off the road, its windows warm and yellow. Gear hung in the glass. Lanterns, packs, coils of rope, blades on the wall. An outfitter, open even in the storm. She pushed through the door. A tuxedo cat lifted its head from the counter. Behind it stood a shelf of oil lanterns, each one filled and trimmed. Raven grabbed one and set coins down fast. The cat watched her with flat yellow eyes, unbothered by the rain she dripped across the floor. She lit the wick at the counter lamp and went back out into the dark. The lantern changed everything. Now she could see the bank's crumbling edge, the slick stones, the gap where the mud had washed out. She moved slow, testing each step. The light threw her shadow long across the water. For ten minutes she walked clean. Then the ground gave. Her boot slid on ice hidden under mud. She dropped. Her free hand shot out and caught a root. The lantern swung wild but held. Her legs hung over the water. The cold hit her through the waxed boots. She breathed, found the root with both hands, and dragged herself up onto solid ground. She lay still and checked herself. The bow was safe. The storm glass was safe. The lantern still burned. But she had learned the truth of this road. The bank was icing over already. The cold front was not days away. It was here, now, creeping down to the river itself. Raven got to her feet. She raised the lantern and looked ahead. The light showed her the path, but it also showed her frost on the stones where there should have been only mud. The low route was freezing faster than her grandmother's map had promised. She could reach the ruins. She had the light to do it. But the river would not stay open behind her for long. She gripped the lantern and pushed forward. The way out was already closing.