Victor Rosevale's Arc

Chapter 1 of 18

Victor Rosevale stood at the Mosswood gate three hours past his relief and would not step down. His post was empty of purpose now. Sable had gone through this gate four days ago with a smile and a wave, and she had not come back. He had told himself he would find her before the week was out, marry her, and hang up his spear for good. The week was almost out. He had asked every rider, every merchant, every drunk stumbling from the tavern. No one had seen her past the eastern trees. The trail was cold, and each hour made it colder. His captain had told him to sleep. He had not slept. A shadow cut across the torchlight. Something heavy struck the gatepost above his head and clung there. Victor raised his lantern and saw the bird. Red feathers, bright as coals, folded against a body lean with muscle. A falcon. Her falcon. He knew it because Sable had fed the thing scraps at his boots once, laughing when it snapped at his glove. The falcon watched him with a yellow eye. A strip of leather was knotted to its leg. Victor's hands shook as he worked the knot free. The leather was cracked and stained dark at one edge. He unrolled it under the lantern. Three words, scratched with a burnt stick. East. River bend. Hurry. Her handwriting. Slanted, quick, the way she wrote lists on the back of his gauntlet when she was bored. He read it twice. The falcon shifted its weight and made a low sound in its throat, watching the road behind him as if expecting more. Victor pressed the leather flat against the gatepost. The stain at the edge was blood. Not much. Enough. He looked east into the dark where the road bent toward the storm belt and the country beyond it, country he had never walked in uniform or out of it. He unbuckled his gate keys and set them on the guardhouse bench. He took his spear from the wall. He took the small purse he had been saving to buy her a ring and slid it inside his coat. His hands were steady now. The cold in his gut had a direction. "Show me," he said to the falcon. The bird lifted from the post and beat once into the dark, then circled back, waiting. Victor stepped through his own gate for the first time in three years without permission and without looking back. Behind him, the torch guttered on an empty post. Ahead, the falcon's red wings caught the lantern light and pulled him east toward the river bend, toward Sable, toward whatever had made her bleed enough to send a bird instead of coming home.