Sir Aldric Thornhaven's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The dead mother Fel cooled in the nest behind them. Aldric held the largest green shard in his fist. It still hummed against his palm. Raven was already moving toward the cave mouth, one arm pressed to her ribs. She meant to leave. He could see it. She had come for a payday, and the stone that broke had taken it from her. "Wait," Aldric said. Raven did not stop. "Den's clear. You don't need me now." "I need to know what this is." He stepped after her into the daylight. "You watched this cave for days. You knew the beast's habits. You know things I don't." She turned. Her face was flat. "I know it was worth a year's coin whole. Now it's gravel." She flicked a hand at the shard. "You broke my payday, Captain. Not much left to talk about." Aldric had no coin to match a year's score. He had lost men to Fel breaches. He had buried three captains before him. He knew the shard mattered more than gold, and he could not let her walk off with what she knew. "You saw it before I did," he said. "In the nest. Before the fight. Tell me what you saw, and I'll pay for the telling. Guard's coin. It won't match a whole stone. But it's real, and it's now." Raven watched him. A thief measures a mark fast. He let her measure. "There were two," she said at last. "Not one gem. The mother kept the second deeper in the nest. Smaller. Blue, not green." She nodded at his fist. "That one you smashed lit up when your steel touched it. The blue one didn't. It just sat there. Cold." Aldric went still. "Where is the blue stone now?" "Where you left it." She almost smiled. "You were too busy not dying to look." He ducked back into the cave. He dug through the frost-stiff fur and the ruin of the nest. His hand closed on something smooth and cold. He drew it out. A blue gem, whole, unbroken. It did not hum. It sat quiet in his palm like a held breath. He carried it into the light. Raven leaned against the stone rise, watching. "That one's worth more than the green," she said. "Whole always is." "Then you'll want to see where it goes." Aldric held her eyes. "Ride back to Floeridge with me. Help me learn what these stones are. I'll pay your keep, and if there's coin at the end of it, you get a cut. A real one." Raven pushed off the rock. She looked at the blue gem, then at him. Greed and doubt fought in her face. "One cut," she said. "And I walk when I want." "Agreed." She fell into step beside him. Aldric closed his fist around the whole blue stone. He had kept her. Now he had two mysteries to answer, and no idea what the unbroken one would do.