Roran Vottier's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

Roran held the golden sword between himself and the black doorway. The rot poured out, steady as spilled ink. Beside him, Kaia shifted her weight, ready to follow him down. He did not move. He turned the blade slightly so the gold light fell on her face. "How did you know where the shrine was buried?" he asked. "How did you know any of this?" Kaia's mouth tightened. She looked at the runestone in her hand, not at him. "We should go in before the light fades." "You keep doing that." Roran planted his boots. "Every time I ask, you talk about something else. I won't walk into that dark with you behind me until I know who you are." The wolf watched them both from the tree line, ears flat, silver eyes fixed on the woman. It had never trusted her either. Roran waited. The rot hissed against the earth. For a long moment Kaia said nothing. Then her shoulders dropped. She turned away from him, toward the woods, and when she spoke her voice was flat and tired. "You want the truth. Fine." She lifted the glowing stone. "This isn't a lucky charm I found. It's mine by blood. I'm the last of a line of druids. The old ones who built that shrine, who sealed this barrow—they were my kin. Every one of us was born to hold the shadow back." "The blight," Roran said. "The blight is only its breath." She faced him again. Her green eyes were wet, but her jaw was hard. "What's buried in there isn't rot. It's a thing made of shadow. It wants one thing: to pull the whole land under the dark. My people fought it for hundreds of years. One by one it took them." Her voice cracked. "My parents. My grandmother. All of them. I've been fighting it alone since I was a child. I have no one left to stand at my back either. So I understand why you won't trust me. But I'm all the help you'll ever get." Roran studied her. The evasion was gone. What stood before him was a woman worn thin by a war older than both of them. He lowered the sword. "Then we're the same," he said. "Both fighting for a home nobody else will save." He held out his free hand. She stared at it, then gripped it once, hard. "You should have told me at the start," he said. "I've learned not to." She wiped her face. "People run when they hear what's really down there." "I'm not running." Roran raised the blade again and stepped toward the doorway. The gold bit into the pouring rot, and the gray peeled back from the black mouth. This time he did not glance behind him. He trusted the footsteps that followed. Together they crossed into the dark of the barrow, and the shadow inside stirred to meet them.