Sylvan's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Sylvan had hunted the ancestral bow for three years and still had nothing but a name. The bow belonged to his bloodline, and only its worthiest archer could draw it. He was that archer. He knew it the way he knew his own reflection, and he liked both. But a bow he could not find was a bow he could not draw. His ancestors had hidden it before he was born, and they had left him no map. He stood at the base of the fairy castle now, staring up at its tower. Blossoms wrapped every stone. High above, a light burned behind the topmost window. A seer lived up there. She was said to read what time had buried. Sylvan hated asking anyone for help. He climbed the winding stairs anyway. The seer waited at the top, and she did not turn when he entered. Her pink hair fell past a gown of layered petals. Her wings caught the window light. She spoke first. "You climbed a long way to ask a question you already fear the answer to." "I climbed a long way because the view is charming," Sylvan said. "The question is a bonus." She faced him then. Her icy eyes moved over him without warmth. "You want the bow your family hid." "I want a direction. Anywhere but here." The seer lifted one hand toward a low table. On it sat a bright red mushroom, small and round-capped, and a pink bonsai tree with delicate flowers. She touched the mushroom's cap. It opened its mouth and sang one high, wavering note. The note hung in the air, then faded. "Your bloodline did not bury the bow in earth," she said. "They gave it to a keeper. A living one. The mushroom remembers the song sung the day they passed it on." "A keeper." Sylvan stepped closer. "Give me a name." "I cannot name what I have not seen. But I can show you the shape of where it went." She closed her eyes. Her glow brightened. When she spoke again, her voice was flat and certain. "North of these walls, past the ridge where nothing grows, a winged beast guards a den. Black as pitch, with feathered wings. Your ancestors trusted the bow to that creature's line. Find the beast, and you find your bow." Sylvan's chest tightened. A guarded beast was a fight, not a search. "You could have just handed me a map." "I gave you the truth. The truth is rarely convenient." She opened her eyes. "The beast will not surrender the bow. It will test you, as your blood intended." He wanted to argue. He had wanted a lead, and now he had one, and it had claws. He turned for the stairs. "Elf," she called. He stopped. "The beast can fly. You cannot. Remember that before you draw on it." Sylvan left the tower with his direction and a colder problem than the one he came with.