Raven Meadows's Arc

Chapter 20 of 25

The boards were home, but the mill still stood open upriver. Raven knew the lower market would come for it. Not the lumber now. The mill itself. She saddled up before dawn and rode the Gemini Brothers' cart back to the yard alone. The waterwheel still turned. The saw still cut. And no one guarded any of it. She found the tracks first. Fresh boot prints ringed the mill barn, pressed deep in the mud. Someone had circled the whole building, counting doors, testing the lock. Raven's stomach dropped. They had already scouted it. They would return with numbers. "You should not stand where you cannot see the trees." The voice came from behind her. Raven spun. A striped creature crouched at the treeline, part tiger, part dragon, black and orange scales down his arms. He read the ground with his claws, tracing the boot prints she had just found. A bow hung across his back. He did not stand up. "Who are you?" Raven asked. "Talon Strikewatch. I track a mark." He touched a print. "Three men. They mean to burn your mill and blame the marsh." He looked up, eyes yellow and steady. "The one paying them is my mark." Raven's hand went to the knife at her belt. A mercenary. On a contract. "So you're one of them." "No." The word came flat and final. "I drop clients who turn out to be the danger. This one did." He stood at last, taller than she expected. "I read eyes, not words. Yours want to protect. So do mine." Raven weighed him. She had no way to hold the mill alone, and Tauron could not leave the gate. She could refuse this stranger and lose the mill tonight. Or trust the read in his eyes. "I can't pay a mercenary's rate," she said. "I did not ask." He looked past her, up at the ridge. "You need a watch post. Not a guard who sleeps." He led her along the river to a hollow oak, wide as three men. Old elvish work wound up its trunk—a tower grown into the tree, ramparts near the top, a walkway ringing the crown. Alarm cords hung slack between the branches. Abandoned, but sound. "From here you see the mill, the road, and the reeds," Talon said. He climbed the first landing and tested the rail. It held. "One watcher up here warns the whole haven before the fire's lit." They worked till dark. Raven restrung the alarm cords. Talon set snares along the two paths to the mill. When the three men came near midnight, a cord snapped tight and the bells rang across the water. Talon dropped from the tower and drove them back into the trees with two arrows and no words. By morning the mill still stood. Raven had a watchtower, a warning system, and a striped stranger perched in the crown who answered only what she asked. The mill was safe. But now the lower market knew someone was guarding it.