Raven Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 5 of 11

The dead beast lay stiff by morning. Raven crouched over it with her bow across her knees. One lucky shot in the dark had saved them. The next creature would come when she least expected it, and she had no way to spot a glowing thing before it reached her. Sylvara wiped her sword and watched her think. "There are more up there," the tracker said. "We need eyes before we climb." Raven remembered a name the dying bookseller had muttered once, a witch who read the valley like a book. They found the crystal house at the edge of the wood by midday. Crystals hung in rows along its carved door and glowed soft in the frost. Plants climbed the walls despite the cold. The door opened before Raven knocked. The witch inside was tall, with red hair and a calm, blunt stare. She looked at Raven's bow, then at Sylvara's torn arm. "You killed one," she said. Not a question. "I'm Florence. The crystals told me something died last night." Raven explained the hunting ground, the glowing eyes, the single shot that had worked by luck. "We can't walk that pass blind," she said. "The next one finds us first." Florence crossed the room to a shrine of pale stones. She lifted one and turned it in her fingers. "Three Tuesdays ago the southeast corner went quiet," she said. "Something drains the magic from low ground upward. Patient. Methodical. Your beasts are feeding on it." She set the stone down. "They glow because they're full of what they steal." "Can you help us see them?" Raven asked. Florence studied her a long moment. "The crystals catch magic moving. I can tie one to your weapons. It will warm when a creature nears. The closer it comes, the brighter it burns." She paused. "But if you take it up that pass, you take my eyes with you. I'll want to know what you find." "Done," Raven said. Florence worked without song or show. She pressed a small blue crystal into the grip of Raven's bow. She fixed a second to the pommel of Sylvara's sword. She hummed once, low, and the stones drank the sound. "Keep them dry," she said. "They don't lie." Raven stepped outside to test it. The dead beast still lay in the frost. She walked toward it, and the crystal in her bow flickered, then held a steady dim light. She backed away. The light faded. She returned. It woke again. "It reads them," Sylvara said. She looked at her own blade, where the stone gave the same faint pulse. "Even dead." Raven slung the bow. For the first time, the dark pass did not feel blind. But Florence's warning sat in her chest. Something large was draining the valley, and it fed the very things waiting on the ridge. The path to the tome now led straight through its feeding ground.