Silas's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Silas stepped through the arch. The eyes in the trees did not blink. Twig-thin figures dropped from the branches and ringed him. One held a spear of black thorn. "You wear a dead crown," it hissed. "But dead branches are common as dirt. Any thief can weave a hat." Silas opened his mouth to name himself, and found he had no proof at all. Then a small voice cut through the ring. "Move aside." A woman shoved past the thorn-spears. Her hair stood wild, gray and threaded with black crow feathers. Marks like claw-scratches ran across her face. She looked Silas up and down, hard, the way a buyer studies a horse. "I called crows before your grandfather was born," she said to the court. "I saw the last warden crowned. I know his face." She turned to Silas. "You have his eyes. But eyes won't convince them. They need the throne to answer." "How?" Silas asked. Morrigan pointed past the clearing. A wall of thorned hedges rose there, tall as houses, twisted into a maze. "The trial ground," she said. "Walk in. Reach the center. If the throne is yours, it will send its own to greet you. If not, the thorns keep you." Her mouth twitched. "They keep most." Silas walked to the hedge mouth. The court crowded behind, hungry to watch him fail. He stepped inside. The walls closed at his back. Thorns leaned in and raked his coat. Each turn looked the same. He pressed his palm to a hedge to steady himself. Flowers burst under his hand, white and out of season. The thorns pulled back an inch. He understood then. The maze answered his gift. He pushed deeper, palm to the walls, blooms opening a path where none had been. Buds cracked wide. Vines curled away from him. At last the hedge parted and he stood in a small green heart, walled in flowers he had made. But the ground stayed empty. No throne-creature came. The silence pressed. Silas felt his stomach drop. Maybe blooms were not enough. Maybe he was only a trespasser after all. He knelt and pushed both hands into the dirt. He gave everything. From the soil rose a single orchid, its petals flame-orange, their edges rimmed with frost. Heat and cold lived in one bloom. No common warden could grow such a thing. Something stirred in the frost-edged petals. A moth unfolded there, wings broad as flower petals, pink and gold. It lifted from the orchid and landed on Silas's shoulder. Its legs gripped him gently, the way the crow had gripped his wrist. Morrigan's voice reached him from beyond the hedge. "That is the throne's own," she called. "It knows its warden." The court fell silent. The thorn-spears lowered. Silas walked out with the moth on his shoulder, no longer a trespasser. But the wild court did not bow. They watched, and he saw the next question in their faces. Proof was not the same as a crown.