Sylvara Thornwhisper's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

Lavinia's words hung in the dust. Someone followed you. They're already inside. Sylvara pushed up onto her knees and looked past the fox. The green fire threw its light on the tavern step and the painted sign above the door. She had to get inside. She had to get off this road before whatever the fox meant found her sitting in the dirt. Then the beast turned back. It had walked maybe twenty paces down the road. Now it stopped, ears up, head swinging. Something in the ditch startled it. A shape lifted from the grass and flapped. The beast snorted and stamped, and the whole animal shied sideways, back toward the fire pit, back toward her. "Move," Lavinia said. "Now." Sylvara tried. Her legs folded. Her wings dragged. The rose in her fist was spent and she knew it. She had used the last of the fox's magic to make the beast kneel. There was nothing left in the stem to make it kneel again. The beast came on at a heavy trot. Not charging. Just afraid, and blind with it, hooves finding the same line she sat in. Lavinia darted sideways and shouted, and the beast did not turn. A small figure stepped out from behind the fire pit. A child. A red mushroom cap sat on his head like a hat that had grown there. More caps at his shoulders opened and closed on their own. Leaves for a shirt. Bare arms. He walked into the road between Sylvara and the beast as if he had been waiting for this exact moment and only now decided to spend it. He put one bare foot flat on the packed dirt and stood still. "Ground's loud here," he said. "Hold on." He hummed. It was a small sound, barely a sound at all. The dust near his foot shivered. The beast's next step landed wrong. It slowed. It stopped four paces from Sylvara and stood shaking, sides heaving, eyes rolling white. The child did not touch it. He kept humming. The beast lowered its head, blew out once, and walked past them both at a careful pace. It went around the tavern and out of sight. Spore Willowveil looked down at Sylvara. His face gave nothing. "You're bleeding," he said. "Knee." Lavinia was already at the step. "Inside. Both of you. He can see her later." Sylvara let the child take her elbow. He was smaller than she was and stronger than he looked. The spent rose fell from her hand into the dirt. She left it. She had nothing now but her own weight and a stranger's grip, and the tavern door was three steps away, and the person who had followed her was on the other side of it.