Tara Meadowguard's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The floor still trembled from the word Tara had spoken. She gripped the book and waited for the shaking to stop. Then a knock struck the cave mouth. Three sharp raps on stone. The cat's ears swung toward the sound. The dragonfly rose and hovered, its wings throwing color across the coins. Tara set the book down and stood. No raider knocked. A small figure stepped into the candlelight. He came up to Tara's knee. Big ears, a chihuahua's sharp face, half-elf in the tilt of his eyes. He wore a worn leather vest and carried a satchel at his hip. He did not reach for a weapon. He looked at Tara's sheepdog fur and her half-elf ears, and something in his face broke open. "You're her pup," he said. "Meadowguard." Tara's fur lifted. "Who are you?" "Tiberius. Your uncle." He said it flat, like a fact he had carried a long way. "Your mother was my sister." Tara had been abandoned as a pup. She had stopped hoping for blood years ago. Her hands went cold. "I have no uncle." "You do. You just never met him." He drew a folded letter from the satchel. The paper was soft with age. "She wrote me before she left you. She said she loved you. I kept it." His ears dropped. "I should have come then. I was scared. I had nothing to offer you." The dragonfly drifted lower and studied him. The cat watched from the coins, tail flicking, saying nothing. Tara took the letter but did not open it. Her hands shook too hard. "Why now?" "I tracked your trail for years." Tiberius glanced at the trembling floor, then at the tall brass candelabra glowing behind the crowns. "You've woken something. I felt it a mile off." "I sense danger too," Tara said. "A mile out. An hour early." "Then it's in the blood." A small smile pulled at his mouth. "There's more of us, Tara. Cousins. Kin. Scattered, but alive. I can help you find them." The floor shuddered again. A low groan rolled up through the gold. The candelabra's eight flames leaned as one, all pointing down, toward the thing stirring beneath the cave. Tiberius steadied himself against the wall. His smile faded. "But first you have to finish what you started here. That thing under us won't wait for a family reunion." Tara looked at the letter in her hand, then at the book of the ritual, then at the shaking floor. She tucked the letter into her fur, against her chest. "Then help me," she said. "The spirit is half-awake. I woke it and I don't know how to finish." Tiberius crossed the coins and knelt beside the open book. He set his small hand on the page next to hers. For the first time, Tara was not alone with the ritual. And below them, the ground kept groaning, louder now.