Rowan Greenbriar's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The smoke still hung thin over the roots when Rowan faced the truth. The fire had saved them once. It had also stripped away every ward her mother set around the cottage. The salt ring was broken. The old marks carved into the door meant nothing now. Inside, the prince breathed slow and shallow. When the air cleared, the hunter would smell him and walk straight through the open dark. "We need new wards," Rowan said. "Before dawn. Before it comes back." Theron lowered his bow. "I know the forest. I don't know your mother's craft." He said it plainly, no shame in it. He had guarded her for years, but the warding had always been hers. Rowan dug through her mother's shelves. Salt was gone. Rowan branches were ash. Her hands closed on an old jar of iron filings and a coil of red thread. Not enough. Her mother's strongest wards needed heartwood from a living tree, burned fresh, the ash pressed into the doorframe. "The oldest oak," Theron said. "A quarter mile out. But something sleeps in its roots." They ran. The oak rose black against the stars. At its base curled a small dragon, coal-black, its fur thick as a cat's. It lifted its round head and blinked at them, calm as a dog by a fire. Rowan froze, jar in hand. "It won't let you cut the tree," Theron whispered. Rowan knelt. All her life, the woods had come to her for help. She tried the oldest trick she knew. She held out her open palm and spoke low, the way her mother gentled sick things. The dragon sniffed her fingers. Then it breathed a soft curl of flame onto the dead branch she offered. The branch caught. Rowan nearly wept. She did not need to cut the living oak. She needed its fire. She gathered a bundle of fallen heartwood, and the little dragon lit each piece without being asked. Theron watched, bow forgotten. They carried the burning wood back cupped against the wind. Rowan ground the warm ash into iron filings. She pressed the mix along the doorframe, the windowsills, the twisted roots. She bound red thread across the threshold and spoke her mother's words over every knot. The cottage seemed to settle, the hollow bark drawing tight. By the time the sky grayed, the wards held. Rowan felt it like a held breath. The hunter could circle the cottage now, but it could not cross. The dragon padded inside and curled beside the sleeping prince, warming him. Rowan sagged against the wall, spent. Then Theron spoke from the window. "Rowan." His voice had changed. "Someone's coming up the path. On foot. In armor." She looked out. A man climbed toward the cottage, steel plate catching the first light, a red cross on his chest. Not the hunter. Worse, maybe. A knight of the realm, walking straight to her warded door.