Thornwyn Mossbrook's Arc

Chapter 14 of 38

The deer slept by the hearth. The elf slept against the wall. The girl sat cross-legged between them with her hand on the deer's flank. Thornwyn stood at the window and watched the tree line go blue. Sunrise was six hours off. The ward was broken, and one witch could not weave it whole again before then. She needed a second hand on the magic. There was no one in the cottage who could give it. She knelt by the elf and shook his shoulder. He opened his eyes at once. "The ward," she said. "I cannot lay it alone in one night. It takes two channels braided. If you can hold a line while I speak the knots, we finish before dawn. If not, they walk in." He pushed himself up on his good arm. "I have no training." "You do not need training. You need to hold what I put in your hand and not let go." "Show me." She wrapped his palm around the base of her staff. The wood was warm from the fire. She placed her own hand above his and spoke a small green word to test him. The staff pulled. He grunted and held. "Good," she said. "Longer. Colder. All night." "I will hold it." She wrapped his leg tighter and helped him to the door. The girl stood without being asked and took up a blanket to carry behind them. The piebald deer lifted its head. Thornwyn crouched and put her forehead to its patchwork brow. "Rest," she said. "You have done enough." They went out to the frozen ground. Thornwyn drove her staff into the dirt at the old boundary line. She set the elf's hand on the shaft and covered it with hers. "Do not speak," she said. "Do not step back. If the girl calls, do not turn." She began the knots. She spoke the green words her mother had taught her and pulled the line from the earth up through the wood and out through his hand. He shook. He held. She walked the perimeter with him rooted at the center, trailing the ward behind her like wet thread. When she reached the shed she looped it. When she reached the root cellar door she looped it again. The girl walked beside her with the blanket and set stones where Thornwyn pointed. The sky was gray when she tied the last knot. The elf's knees gave. She caught him before he hit the ground. The ward hummed once and settled. "It holds," she said. The girl looked up the eastern road. A dark shape moved on it, then another. Not two riders now. Six. Thornwyn helped the elf inside and barred the door. The ward would keep them out. It would not make them leave.