Sable's Arc

Chapter 7 of 18

The hunter was gone, but Gemma still wanted the buried stone. Sable climbed the goat ledge with the silver fox woman close behind. She hated bringing anyone up here. But Gemma had spoken the hatchling's secret at the crossroads, and refusing her now might cost more than the truth ever could. Sable led her past the roost, where the great dragon lay curled with its ears turned toward the cave. It watched Gemma the whole way. They reached the appleberry tree. Its branches drooped like a willow, hiding a small crate that floated an inch off the ground. Sable had stashed her tools inside it, a blue sphere with a hinged door. She had not expected Gemma to see her hiding place. She knelt in the loose soil and started to dig with her hands. "You buried a poison stone to end this beast," Gemma said. She turned a gem on her sleeve. "Now you guard the beast. People change fast in this valley." "I changed once," Sable said. "Watch the dragon, not me." Her fingers found the stone. She lifted it, still wrapped in cloth. Gemma leaned in, and her whole face shifted. The cold collector look fell away. "That's it," she breathed. "The Mirrorstone. My grandmother lost it to a river forty years ago." She reached for it. Sable pulled it back. "It's poisoned," Sable said. "Gloomcap. Touch the wet side and you die." Gemma froze with her hand out. Near the roost, a small gray shape wandered close, a baby rhino that had strayed up from Sable's old signal games and never left. It nosed at a pot of purple skull-shaped flowers by the tree. Gemma glanced at the calm little scene, then back at the stone. "Trade," Gemma said. Her voice went quiet. "I keep your secret. The hatchling, the peace, all of it. I never sold a word in my life, but I could start with yours." She waited. "Give me the stone. Clean it first. I only want the mirror inside, not the poison." Sable weighed it. The stone was useless to her now, a buried threat with a dead purpose. But Gemma held the one thing that could get every hunter in the valley climbing these cliffs. She looked at the dragon, then the cave behind it. She unwrapped the stone and scraped the poison off against a rock, careful, her back to the wind. When the surface came clean, it caught the light like still water. She held it out. "Your silence for this. Break it, and I'll know you're the one who talked." Gemma took the stone with both hands. For once she did not turn it like the others. "Done," she said, and started down the ledge. Sable stood by the empty hole. The Mirrorstone was gone, and so was her buried weapon. She had traded her last poison for a stranger's word, and now the whole peace rested on whether Gemma would keep it.