Thistle Warden's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

Thistle carried the jar out of the garden before the dew burned off. The leaves inside pointed north, hard and steady, but the glass told her nothing about miles. She stood at the north wall and did the math in her head. On foot, days. By boat through the flooded district, still days. The cutting shivered in her hand every few minutes, and each shiver meant another trunk was falling. Briar caught up to her at the gate, ivy dragging in the dirt. "You'll walk in on ash," Briar said. Thistle knew it. She set the jar on the low stones and unwrapped the deed. She needed the grove to tell her more than a direction. She pressed her thumb against the cutting's stem until it bled a bead of green sap, then smeared the sap across her sister's palm. "Hold it with me," she said. Briar's power woke trees when they touched. Thistle was betting a live cutting counted. Briar's fingers closed over hers around the jar. The leaves went still. Then the glass grew warm, and the cutting sent up a second shoot, thin as wire, that bent and paused and bent again. Thistle watched it draw a shape in the air she had seen before, the shape torn from her map. Distance, at last, laid against the direction. She measured with her eye. Two days hard riding, not seven. A chance, if she moved now. The shoot browned and fell as soon as Briar let go. So did the compass leaves. The jar sat empty of guidance, its work spent in one burst. Thistle wrapped the dead cutting in the deed and tied it to her belt. "I have a place now," she said. "I don't have a second try." Briar wiped the green from her cheek. "Then I'm coming." Thistle shook her head. "You hold the swamp. The loggers won't wait for me to come back." She kissed her sister's forehead, took the horse from the post, and rode north before the sun cleared the wall. Behind her, Briar knelt in the gate and pressed both hands to the ground, already reaching for what roots were left.