Sable Morrow's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

The eyes came closer. Sable stumbled back against the altar. Her heart slammed, and her light answered. Gold flared up both arms, bright as a lantern. It lit the whole shrine. The creature flinched, then stepped into the glow, and the shape of a man rose from the dark fur. Tall. Black hair to his shoulders. Silver eyes that matched the pale shine she had first seen. "Put it out," he said. "You'll bring the whole hollow down on us." Sable could not put it out. That was the problem. Her panic fed the light, and the light fed her panic. The brighter she burned, the more her hands shook. She clamped her arms to her chest, but the glow leaked through her sleeves. "I can't," she said. "It does this. It follows how I feel." The man watched her shake. He did not reach for her. He crouched instead, slow, until his eyes were level with hers. "Then stop fighting it," he said. "You can't outrun fear by running faster. Breathe. Count it out." "You're a wolf," she said. "And you're a lamp," he said. "We both hide what we are. Breathe." She breathed. It caught in her throat. The light pulsed with each ragged pull. He breathed too, loud and even, and she matched him without meaning to. In. Hold. Out. The shaking slowed first. Then the gold dimmed, arm by arm, like a fire banking down to coals. "There," he said. "It wasn't the fear that moved it. It was you feeding the fear." Sable stared at her wrists. A faint warmth still lived under the skin, but steady now, dim. She had not willed it dark. She had let the panic drain, and the light had followed. For the first time she understood the rule. The light was not her enemy to beat down. It was a mirror. "I'm Kael," he said. He stood. The shrine felt smaller with him in it. "This place is mine at night. I come here to shift where no one hunts me." "I came to practice," Sable said. "Alone. I thought it was empty." He almost smiled. "Neither of us is as alone as we planned." He glanced at the cracked amulet on the altar, then back at her. "You hide under that. It won't teach you anything." She knew that. She had known it since the first night. She picked up the amulet but did not put it on. Her bare wrists stayed dim and quiet in the dark. "I can hold it steady now," she said. "When I'm calm. But I still can't make it come. I can only wait for it." Kael moved toward the mouth of the grotto. "Then you've got half a skill," he said. "Come back tomorrow night. I'll be here. You can practice the other half where someone's watching who won't scream." Sable looked at the dark shrine, no longer empty, and nodded.