Thornwyn Mossbrook's Arc

Chapter 31 of 38

The dark came down under the laurel and the cold came with it. Thornwyn woke to the girl shivering against her ribs. Not a small shake. A hard rattle that ran through the child's whole body. Thornwyn touched her cheek. Cold as creek stone. The girl had not eaten since the stream, and before that Thornwyn could not remember. Days, maybe. The elf breathed shallow against the dirt. If the girl went down beside him, Thornwyn would have two to carry and neither able to walk. She could not risk a fire. Smoke would climb through the laurel and mark them for anyone within a mile. She looked at the deer across the mouth of the hollow. His flank rose and fell. His patchwork coat held the last light. Then she looked at the chimera folded behind him, big as a plow horse, deer and wolf and bear laid into one body. Heat came off him in waves. She had felt it on the ride. "Come," she whispered. The chimera lifted his head. She pointed at the girl. He rose and stepped over the elf's legs without touching him and lay down again along Thornwyn's side, curling his body into a wall. The girl's eyes went wide. Thornwyn eased her over into the bend of the chimera's belly, between the heavy shoulder and the folded haunch. The girl went stiff, then slack. The shaking slowed inside two breaths. Food was harder. Thornwyn had nothing in her pockets but moss and thread. She looked at the piebald deer. He was watching her the way he watched a threshold. "I need to step out," she said. "Ten feet. No more." She took the staff and crawled to the ward line. She reached her hand through and felt the cold press against her fingers. She spoke low to the ground. Not a summoning. A request. She named what grew here in autumn under oak: the fat white caps that came up after rain, the acorns the squirrels had missed, the last hips on the brier. She drew a slow circle with the staff tip in the dirt just outside the ward. The ground answered small. Three mushrooms pushed up through the leaves. A handful of acorns rolled from under the fallen trunk. A brier vine bent down within her reach, red with fruit. She gathered them into her lap and drew back inside the ward and closed it behind her. She cracked the acorns with the butt of the staff. She split a mushroom cap and pressed it into the girl's hand. The girl ate. Slow at first, then faster. Thornwyn fed her the hips one at a time. Color came back into the child's mouth. The girl leaned into the chimera's flank and slept. Thornwyn set her hand on the small back and felt it rise and fall, even and warm. She kept the staff across her lap and watched the laurel.