Raven Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 50 of 11

The clean snow lasted only an hour. Then the wind shifted, and the witch's castle loomed ahead again. Raven reined her horse and stared. They had ridden forward, yet the icy towers stood before them once more. The pass had bent back on itself. The only road out ran through the witch's gate, and she knew it. "She turned the path," Sylvara said. Her breath fogged. "We can't outrun her ground." Raven studied the shelf. The drop fell away on one side. The castle filled the other. No wide ride this time. The witch waited at the open gate, smiling, her gray hair loose on the wind. "Back so soon," she called. "I told you the road comes home to me. Leave the magic, book nerd. Then you walk free." A growl rolled up from the drift beside the trail. Snow heaved, and a great white shape rose from it. The mountain lion stood tall as the horses, its fur white as the ground, its eyes pale and blank. It fixed on Raven's pack, where Florence's crystal lantern still glowed. Isaiah lifted his dull sword. "It wants the magic too." Raven's hands tightened on the reins. The beast loved magic. The witch fed on it. Both hunted the same thing she carried. Then the idea struck. She could not fight either one. But she could set them on each other. "Hold," Raven told the others. She pulled the green lantern from her pack. Its light bent hard toward the gate, drawn to the witch's hunger. Raven swung off her horse. The lion's head tracked the glow. She walked three steps toward the castle, lantern high, then hurled it through the open gate. The lantern struck the ice floor inside and skidded deep into the hall. Its green light flared bright across the witch's walls. The lion sprang. It shot past Raven, through the gate, chasing the brightest magic it had ever seen. The witch's smile broke. She stumbled back as the beast tore into her hall, claws screaming on stone. "Ride!" Raven shouted. She threw herself back onto the horse. Behind them the witch shrieked, no longer sweet. The lion's roar answered. The gate framed white fur and flying ice and the witch's pale arms raised against it. Raven did not look twice. She kicked the horse hard along the narrow shelf, Sylvara and Isaiah close behind. The cold let go of her chest. The shelf widened. The towers shrank behind them, and the sounds of the fight faded under the wind. They stopped where the trail dropped toward lower ground. Raven's hands shook. She had lost Florence's lantern for good. But the witch was busy now, torn between her hall and the beast that hunted her magic. The road out was no longer hers alone. "That was our light," Isaiah said. "It bought the only door we had," Raven answered. She turned the horse down the slope, toward the place where the creature could be ended.