Sarah Snakearm's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Sarah took the road to Dragon Mountain at a run and did not stop until the serpent bridge came into view. She crossed it at dusk and slept in a stand of pines above the valley. By morning she had a plan she did not trust. Kevintor received guests at an open sparring ground on the lower slope. Everyone who chased him went there first. Arriving with empty hands meant standing in the same line as the rest. She came down through the trees and saw the gift wall before she saw the ground itself. A long wooden rack stood outside the gate, pinned with paper and cloth and small bright things. Floral cards. Lacquered combs. A folded silk banner with a poem stitched in gold. Two free ramen vouchers, one red-bordered, one with a poultry stamp at the corner. A jade pendant on a black cord. A child's drawing of a champion belt. Sarah counted nine offerings before she stopped counting. Every challenger in the lands had left something. Every gift said the same thing in a different voice. Pick me. She sat down on a stone across the path and opened her pack. She had brought money, a clean training wrap, and a length of polished steel she had been carrying for a year without knowing why. It was a throwing star she had hammered out herself after their match, on a night she could not sleep. She had shaped the points into a heart. She had never shown it to anyone. She had meant to throw it into the river the next time she passed one. She held it in her palm and thought about the wall. A pendant said I am rich. A poem said I am clever. A bowl of ramen said I fed you once. None of them said I fought you. None of them said I lost to you and went home and made this with my hands. She wrapped the star in the clean training cloth, walked to the gate, and asked the boy at the post for a nail. She did not pin it to the gift rack. She pinned it to the inside of the gate, at eye height, where Kevintor would see it when he opened the door and no one else would. The boy watched her. "Name?" Sarah shook her head. "He'll know." She walked back to the stone across the path and sat down to wait. She did not join the line at the rack. She did not leave a card. She had spent the morning learning that every other challenger was buying his attention with something they had bought. She had brought him the only thing she owned that he had made. The gate stayed shut. The line grew. Sarah sat where she could see the door and counted her breaths the way she counted points in a match. She had made her move. The next one was his.