Sylvara Thornwhisper's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The hunter kept his hand inside his coat. Sylvara kept her eyes on him across the tavern floor. Lavinia sat on his boots. Spore sat beside Sylvara, humming so low it sounded like the room breathing. She could throw what magic she had left. One strike. But if she killed him, she killed the only mouth that knew who wanted her dead. She needed him talking, not bleeding. The tavern door opened behind her. Cold air pushed in. Boots hit the plank, heavy, then a claw. Heads turned at the bar. A woman near the window gasped and covered her mouth. "Sylvara." She knew the voice before she turned. Fennel Thornwing, the beast who had guarded her sister grove at the edge of the Thornwood for eleven years. Bat wings folded tight. Goat horns scraping the doorframe. Wolf teeth showing when he spoke, though he was the gentlest thing she had ever known. He crossed the room in three steps and stopped between Sylvara and the bar. "You are far from home," Fennel said. "So are you." "Grove is empty. Fairies gone. I came looking." His yellow eyes moved to the hunter. "That one smells wrong." The hunter tried to stand. Lavinia growled. Fennel set one clawed hand flat on the bar beside the man's cup. He did not touch him. He did not need to. "Coat," Fennel said. "Open it." The hunter opened his coat. A short knife. A folded paper. No crossbow, no vial. Sylvara crossed the room and took the paper. She unfolded it on the bar between the bottles and the wet ring under his stool. A drawing of her. Wings, hair, the curve of her jaw. Under it, three words in a hand she did not know: alive if possible. "Who paid you," she said. He looked at Fennel. He looked at the fox on his boots. He looked at the child humming on the bench. He decided. "A man in a pale tower," he said. "West of here. He said you would come for the book. He wanted you brought to him before you reached it." Sylvara's hands went cold. The tower she was walking toward. The book with the binding-song. The one thing that could wake the heartroot and pull every living thing in her forest under one shield. Someone in that tower had watched her leave her woods. Someone in that tower had sent this man to catch her at the door. "Was it you," she said, "who walked through my forest and left no track?" "No." His voice cracked. "He sent that first. To see if you would leave." She folded the paper. She put it in her pocket. She did not kill him. She had what she needed, and it was worse than a knife. "Tie him," she told Fennel. "He rides with us to the tower. If he lied, I will know at the door."