Tomas Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 12

Auria's warning stayed with Tomas through the night. Something worse than the hound guarded the stones. He could not walk in blind. So at dawn he returned to her cave, ducked under the drying herbs, and found her grinding leaves by the fire. "You told me a danger waits at the ring," he said. "I need its name. Or I die not knowing what killed me." Auria set down her stone. The raven shifted on its perch. "There's one man who could tell you," she said. "A mage. My people thought him dead years ago. He isn't. He lives beside the stones themselves." Her silver eyes narrowed. "He works blood magic, Tomas. Whatever guards that ring, he made it, or he woke it. Ask him and you invite him into this." Tomas weighed it. Days of blood and no answers. "I'll take the risk," he said. Auria pressed a bundle of herbs into his hand. "For wounds. If you live to use them." He left Luca sleeping by her fire and walked past the grove alone. The stone ring rose from the mist. Black blood pooled at its center and never dried. A weather-beaten hut leaned among the standing stones, its thatch rotted through. Tomas knocked. The door hung open on its own. Inside, a small figure sat in the dark. Ragged robes. White skin scarred and cracked. When the man lifted his head, his eyes burned red. This was the fallen mage. He looked frail enough to snap. Tomas did not trust it. "A protector," the mage said. His voice was thin and dry. "You've come to the stones. You want to know what sleeps here." "The hound came from this ring," Tomas said. "The healer said something worse guards it. Name it." The mage smiled with cracked lips. "The hound is my hound. A small hunger I fed with blood." He rose slowly. "But the ring holds more than a dog. It holds what I bound to it. A shade of my own making. It does not eat flesh. It drinks the living dry and leaves the body standing." He tilted his head. "You'll meet it soon enough. You've already told it you're here." Tomas gripped his knife. "Then I'll end you first." He stepped forward. The mage raised one thin hand. Tomas's own blood surged hot beneath his skin, dropping him to his knees. Pain tore through his chest. The mage was weak, but not powerless. "Not today," the mage whispered. "Bring me the fox spirit. His blood is rare. Do that, and I'll call off what hunts you." Tomas crawled from the hut and stumbled into the grove. His chest still burned. He had a name now, and a face for the curse. But he had walked out with a demand that turned his stomach. The mage wanted Luca. And the shade in the ring now knew Tomas by his blood.