Sable Ashwick's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

Sable climbed off the rock shelf with the glider strapped to her back and the falcon riding her shoulder. Sylvara Greenweave lay curled in her vest pocket, breathing but silent. The shelf gave onto a goat track that wound down through pines. Sable walked. Her legs shook. The charts pressed against her ribs, and the second hull waited somewhere east, but she could not fly without wind sense and she could not read the wind alone. Hours passed. The pines thinned. Smoke drifted up through the branches. Sable came out above a village tucked into a bowl of the mountains. Slate roofs. A crooked chimney. A painted sign swung over the largest building, a tavern with a tall loft under its eaves and lantern light in the windows. She read the name burned into the wood. Mosswood. She stopped on the path and laughed once, short and dry. She had flown east for two days to end up in a place that shared her own town's name. She needed water and a guide. She pushed open the tavern door. The room was warm and half full. Heads turned. Sable kept her hand near her vest pocket and scanned for a table. A woman behind the bar was already watching her. Red curls. Green eyes. An amber tail flicked once against the barrel behind her, then stilled. "Glider on your back," the woman said. "Fairy in your pocket. You came out of the storm belt." Sable froze. "How do you know that." "Only place that spits people out onto my ridge. Sit down before you fall down." Sable sat. The woman poured water and set it in front of her without asking. Up close her hands were scarred across the knuckles. "Ire Taverness," the woman said. "I run this place. I also track things. You look like something's tracking you." "Scavengers. The belt is between us now." "For a day. Maybe two." Ire's tail flicked again. "What do you need." Sable drank. Her throat opened. She decided in one breath. "A guide east. My partner can't fly. I can't read the wind alone. There's a ridge past the next belt I have to reach." Ire studied her. "East is where I lost a child's trail two nights ago. Something's out there taking things. Goats. Then a boy." She leaned on the bar. "I go east tomorrow either way. You want a guide, you ride with me and we watch each other's backs." "Done." "Sunrise. Loft upstairs is empty. Sleep." Sable climbed the stairs with the falcon on her arm and the fairy still warm against her chest. She laid the charts on the loft boards and stared at the eastern mark. She had lost the sky for now. She had bought a road instead, and a partner with claws.