Tomas Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 11 of 12

Dawn light did not reach the cabin fast enough. Arthur's warning still hung in the air when the cold came again. Not toward the coals. Toward Luca. Tomas felt the fox boy stiffen at his side. A strong soul had already slipped past the dying fire. It moved for the boy, not the warmth. Tomas grabbed a burning brand and swept it between Luca and the cold. The soul recoiled from the flame, then circled wide. It did not flee like the weak ones. It watched. It wanted the boy behind the fire, and Tomas could not hold the brand and hunt the thing at once. "I can't do both," Tomas said. "Guard him or chase it. Not both." Arthur limped closer, leaning hard on his staff. The old druid's kind face was grim. "Then don't fight it here," he said. "Take the boy where these souls cannot follow. There is a place, an old ring of stone with a great firepit at its heart. My order keeps it burning. No cold thing crosses that ground." He nodded toward the mountain path. "Onrion. The holy town. Its walls are blessed. Its fire never dies." Tomas looked at Luca. The boy's ears were flat, his small hands shaking. His brother had vanished to a curse like this one. "Will you come?" Tomas asked him. Luca gripped Tomas's sleeve and nodded. Auria stepped from the cabin door with her book and her herb bundle. "Then we run," she said. "Before it brings others." She thrust a second torch into the coals and lit it. "Two fires between us and it. Move." They went. Tomas kept the burning brand at Luca's back. Auria held her torch high on the other side. The cold soul trailed them through the trees, always just past the reach of the flame. Arthur set the pace, faster than his years should allow. Twice the soul darted in. Twice Tomas swung fire and drove it back. The stone town rose ahead, wrapped in pale banners and weathered walls. Past a broad gathering ring of stone, a great firepit blazed at its center. Robed figures tended it day and night. Tomas pulled Luca across the ring's edge and turned. The cold soul stopped at the stone line. It could not cross. The blessed fire threw its heat outward, and the thing shrieked and thinned and slid back into the trees. Luca sat by the great firepit, and for the first time in days his shaking stopped. Auria knelt beside him. Tomas let the brand fall from his hand. "He's safe here," Arthur said. "But safe is not the same as free." He met Tomas's eyes. "The strongest souls still hunt your woods. This fire holds them off the boy. It does not unmake them. That work waits for you."