Renni Ashfire's Arc

Chapter 11 of 12

Renni came out of Mothwood at first light, dragging a sled behind her. On it lay a long carved box she had taken from the shrine, the beast folded inside, jaw bound shut. The runed blade rode across her knees. The woods thinned. The fence came up. She crossed back under the warning sign without slowing. The small white satyr followed her to the tree line and stopped there. It watched her go with dark, steady eyes, one hoof lifted. Renni did not look back. She had what she came for. The thing that had walked beside her through the worst of it would not walk into a town. She pulled the sled into the square below the guild's four-story stone front and let the rope drop. People came out of doorways. A child pointed. A hunter she half knew went pale and stepped back inside. Renni opened the lid of the carved box so they could all see what was in it. The body was real. The tracks matched. There was no arguing with it. The guild master came down the steps with a rolled scroll in his fist. He shook it open in the cold air, and Renni saw the heavy ink of the ban, the seal at the bottom, her own life written between the lines. He read three words aloud and stopped. He looked at the open box. He looked at her. "You crossed the fence," he said. "You know the law." Renni wiped her hands on her coat. "I know what was killing us," she said. "It isn't anymore." Behind him, two guild hunters moved to either side of her. One set a hand on her arm. The scroll stayed open between them like a second blade. They took the runed weapon. They took the sled. They left the box in the square for the town to see, and they walked her through the carved doors of the guild house and shut them behind her. The beast was dead. The hunt was won. And Renni Ashfire stood inside the building that had forbidden it, waiting to learn the price.