Silverwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Silverwood held the compass at the edge of his grove. The needle pointed past every road, toward the erased mountain. But he could not go. He pressed his palm to the nearest trunk and felt the cold turn wrong beneath the bark. The corruption crept inward. If he left, it would spread through every tree while he was gone. The frost-trees would die untended. He had sworn to guard them. He could not save all the frozen groves by abandoning his own. He walked the perimeter and searched for a way to hold the cold in place. The largest tree stood at the grove's heart, its crystal branches shimmering, runes carved down its trunk. Its roots ran under every other tree. If he could anchor the sickness there, the rot might slow. But he did not know the old binding. His teacher had known it. His teacher was gone. A voice spoke behind him. "Your marks are wrong." A barefoot girl stood in the snow. She looked ten years old. Her coat was patched sail-cloth, her fingers black with ink. She did not shiver. Silverwood knew of her. She had drawn every map in the mapmaker's tower, twice, and once surveyed the mountain nobody else would chart. "You're the child from the tower," he said. "Hale Juniper." She crouched by the runed trunk and touched a carved line. "This one is broken. Someone recut it wrong. The bind leaks here." She pointed. "And here. Two breaks." "I can't read them," Silverwood said. "I read everything." She pulled a folded page from her coat. It was a survey, drawn in her own hand, of the grove's root-lines. "I mapped this a year ago. The roots feed the heart-tree. Fix the two breaks and the cold stays put." Silverwood knelt beside her. "Show me." She guided his knife. He cut the first rune deeper, matching her page stroke for stroke. The trunk hummed. He cut the second. The crystal branches brightened, and the wrong cold pulled back from the outer trees toward the center. It gathered in the heart-tree and went still. Silverwood pressed his palm to the bark. The cold no longer sang cracked. It held. The grove was bound. He could leave now, and the trees would stand. "It won't last," Hale said. She stood and brushed snow from her knees. "The heart-tree still wakes. The bind only slows it. Weeks. Maybe less." "Then I have until it breaks to reach the mountain." Silverwood folded her survey and held it out. "I owe you." She did not take the page. "Keep it. I want to see the mountain drawn right." She looked at the compass in his hand. "She's looking for that. The mapmaker. I helped her once. Now I've helped you." She turned toward the trees. "Walk fast, elf. The bind is counting down." Silverwood took the compass and left the grove behind him.