Tara Ashveil's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Tara Ashveil stood at the tree line and watched the hunter-king's lantern move through her woods. He had killed her sister with a silver bolt last winter. She had spent every night since planning how to drag him past the frost arch at the end of her shore, where her pack waited to take a new brother. The plan was simple. The problem was not. She crouched by the arch and pressed her palm to the carved stone. The runes were cold. They had always been cold. Her grandmother had told her the truth of it years ago: the arch could kill a mortal, or turn a wolf, but it could not bind a living man into fur. The binding needed a hearth-oath sworn under a roof, spoken by a keeper who guarded a door. Her shore had no roof. Her shore had no keeper. If she dragged the king through the arch tonight, he would only bleed out in the snow. A heavy shape moved behind her. The white bear that walked her line lowered its head near her shoulder. She scratched its ear without looking. "I need a door," she said. "I need someone who chooses who walks through it." She knew one. Down the road, past the wardens' checkpoint, a low timber lodge sat under fur-lined eaves. A girl worked the front hall there every night. Tara had heard the stories from travelers. Twice the girl had turned away men who came back a second time. Twice she had sent them out again. A keeper of a door, whether the girl knew the word or not. Tara left the bear at the arch and walked the road until the lodge windows glowed yellow through the pines. Inside, the front hall smelled of pitch and old wool. The girl sat behind a faded blue service desk, marking a ledger. A small tattoo showed at the side of her neck when she turned her head. "I need a room," Tara said. "And I need you to check a guest in for me tomorrow night. A tall man. Hunter's coat. Silver at the belt." Fiona Latch set down her pen. She looked at Tara for a long moment. "You're the warden." "I am." "You don't take rooms." "Tonight I do." Fiona studied her. "If I let him in, what happens to him." "He signs the book. He sleeps. He walks out in the morning under his own feet." Tara laid coin on the desk. "That's all I need from you. The signing." Fiona looked at the coin. She looked at the door. Then she slid the ledger across the desk and turned it so Tara could read the empty line. "One night," Fiona said. "Then he's your problem." Tara signed. The binding had its keeper now. Tomorrow the hunter-king would sleep under a roof he did not own, and the arch at her shore would finally have teeth.