Scarlet Anne's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Scarlet Anne crouched at the marsh's edge and pressed her nose close to the blackened grass. Eleven days without Jake. Her whiskers twitched. The trail of dead footprints cut straight into the swamp, and somewhere past them, she had to believe, was her husband. A sagging gate stood where the green ended. Vines and pale bones twisted through its frame. The wood was soft with rot, and the iron weeped rust. Beyond it, even the air smelled wrong — sweet and burnt, like something cooked too long. She stepped through. A small dark bone hung from a string on the other side, swaying though no wind moved. Someone had left it there. A warning. Scarlet Anne touched it once with a gloved finger, and her stomach tightened. Further in, she found what the blight had eaten. A huge dragon skeleton lay collapsed across the path, its ribs draped with faded cloth and dead lanterns. Someone had lived inside it once. Now the bones were grey and crumbling, and the footprints walked right under its jaw and kept going. Scarlet Anne drew her blade and stepped off the trail. She would follow the footprints, but not on them. Whatever killed this place was still walking — and now she was walking after it.