Scarlett Ashford's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Scarlett Ashford knelt in the ash of her village and pressed her palm to a bootprint already crusting with frost. The warlord who killed her kin had made this mark. She had followed it for six days. Now the snow filled it faster than she could read it. If she lost the trail, she lost the man who left her for dead among her family. Her wolf paced the ruined threshold behind her. Its white coat matched the snow. It lifted its head and stared north, ears sharp, then whined low. Scarlett trusted that whine more than her own eyes. She stood, gripped her knife, and followed the animal into the trees. The wolf led her uphill for hours. Cold burned her lungs. She wanted to stop, but stopping meant the trail died. Near dusk the wolf halted at a cliff face and scratched the stone. Scarlett brushed away the snow and found carved symbols beneath. She knew the shapes. Her kin had cut them into shrines like this one for generations. One line held a message in her family's hand. The letters were fresh, gouged in haste. "They ride for the cottage in the valley. Warn no one. Trust no one who served him." Her mother had carved this while fleeing. Scarlett pressed her forehead to the cold rock. The dead had left her a direction. She followed the wolf down into the valley. Mist hung between the pines like something half asleep. A small stone cottage sat in the fog, its roof green, its door glowing faintly. A painted sign read, "In her dreams." Smoke curled from the chimney. Someone lived here. Someone her mother had pointed her toward. Scarlett pushed the door open without knocking. A man sat by the fire, one leg stretched stiff before him. A long scar split his jaw. He did not rise. He only looked at her wolf, then at her red hair, and set down his cup. "You have the Ashford look," he said. "I wondered if any of you lived." Her knife was in her hand before she chose to draw it. "You knew my family." "I marched under the same banner that burned them." He spread his empty hands. "I left his service. That is why I hide in a place that feels like a dream. Men like him do not forget deserters." Scarlett's pulse pounded. She had lost the trail in the snow. This man knew the warlord's mind, his roads, his habits. "You will tell me where he went." The veteran studied her a long moment. "I can do better. I can tell you where he is going next." He nodded toward the fire. "But once you walk his road, girl, he will learn you are alive. And he will come for you." Scarlett sheathed her knife and sat down across from him. The trail was cold no longer. The hunter had a name to hunt, and now the hunted would hunt back.