Thunder's Arc

Chapter 5 of 7

Thunder stepped inside the cottage and felt the air change. Books lined every wall, stacked on tables and tucked into corners. The man gestured toward a wooden cross hanging above the doorway, carved with roses that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light. "That's the symbol they're trying to erase," he said. "The book you're carrying isn't just scripture. It's proof that three communities made peace twenty years ago, and certain people want everyone to forget that ever happened." Thunder set his pack down slowly. He'd been carrying evidence, not just words. The man sat at a small table and pulled out a sheet of parchment covered in careful handwriting. "I helped write the treaty. We bound it with prayers and called it holy so no one could dismiss it as politics. It worked until someone decided old peace was inconvenient." Thunder looked at the book in his pack, then at the man. "Why did someone run from this?" he asked. "Why not just deliver it?" The man's expression darkened. "Because the people who want it destroyed aren't just following you. They're already at the settlement, waiting. Whoever gave you that book knew they'd be killed if they kept going north." Thunder felt the weight shift in his chest. He'd thought he was helping someone finish a task. Instead, he'd volunteered to walk into a trap meant for someone else. Maren spoke from the doorway. "He needs to know what's in it. All of it." The man nodded and opened the book to a page near the center. Three signatures, three seals, three promises written in different hands. Thunder read the names and recognized two of them from stories he'd heard in other settlements. Leaders who'd spent decades teaching their people that division kept them safe. The man closed the book and handed it back to Thunder. "You can still turn around," he said. "Leave it here. I'll find another way." Thunder held the book and felt the question settle in his hands. He'd been carrying it because someone asked, because that's what he did. But now he knew what it meant, and walking north wasn't just helping anymore. It was choosing a side in a conflict he hadn't understood until now. He looked at the cross above the door, at the roses that marked something people had fought to protect. He thought about the child on the road who'd told him he could stop. But stopping here meant letting the book disappear, and someone had already run themselves to exhaustion trying to keep it moving. Thunder put the book back in his pack. "I'll take it north," he said. "But now I know what I'm walking into." The man didn't smile, but he nodded. Thunder stepped back onto the path with Maren beside him, carrying knowledge he couldn't unknow and a choice he'd made with his eyes open.