Shadow's Arc

Chapter 3 of 8

Shadow raised the staff and let the green orb burn. His red magic poured out and slammed into the four men. They dropped before they could turn. The torches guttered. Smoke curled up through the twisted branches. For the first time in three years, Shadow had won. He stood over the fallen men and breathed hard. No one had warned his father. The road north lay open. He stepped past the bodies and pushed deeper into the haunted wood. The trunks bent lower here. Mist clung to his boots. He needed to find his father before dawn, while surprise still lived. But the forest twisted the path. Every direction looked the same. Green light pulsed inside the deepest trees, sick and cold. Then a voice spoke from the roots. "You smell of dead men." A small figure stood among the gnarled trunks. Green hair fell past her shoulders. Two short yellow horns curved from her head. Her dress was made of woven leaves. Green eyes fixed on Shadow with no fear. She pressed one hand flat to a tree, and the bark warmed under her palm. "I'm looking for my father," Shadow said. He kept the staff ready. "He's north. Show me the way out of these trees." Mossara tilted her head. "That staff is mine to guard. The hooded one had no right to give it." She stepped closer, bare feet silent on the roots. "But I don't want it back. I want to know why grief walks my wood carrying it." "My father killed my mother." The words came flat. "Three years I hunted him. Now he's baiting me. I don't care. I'll bring him down anyway." Mossara studied his red eyes and the scar cut through the left one. Something in her face softened. "He wants you angry. Anger makes you foolish." She pointed to a stone half sunk in the roots. On it stood an old mirror, its dark frame carved with vines. "Look, before you go. See what waits." Shadow did not trust her. But the mirror pulled his eyes. He stepped close. The glass was cracked. Beneath it, pale smoke swirled. A face rose out of the smoke, a grinning skull ringed in green fire. Then the skull shifted. It became his father, older, waiting in a stone hall with a staff across his knees, smiling at an empty doorway. Shadow's stomach dropped. The mirror showed the trap ready and set. His father knew he was coming.