Violet Blackstone's Arc

Chapter 4 of 14

They left the first stone marker before dawn. Nadia walked ahead now. Violet followed, sore from the slope, her fingers still stinging where the snare gut had cut her. The forest was gray and wet. Somewhere behind them, the pale eyes from the night before had not left. Violet had felt them since they broke camp. She did not turn to look. After an hour Nadia stopped at a split in the trail. "He's still with us." "I know." "Then choose. Run, wait, or ask." Violet thought of the throat-height snare. She thought of Colton at the farmhouse, waiting for her to come back. She could not lead a stalker to the next marker. She could not sleep with it circling either. "We ask," Violet said. Nadia pointed downhill. "Then we do it where there are witnesses. The trading post is an hour on. He won't follow us through a door." They walked hard. The trees thinned. A low building came into view, smoke rising from a stone chimney. A silver-haired man stood outside splitting kindling, a wool vest open over a plaid shirt. He drove the axe down once, cleanly, and set another log up. He looked at them the way he'd look at weather. "Nadia," he said. "You bring me trouble." "I bring you a customer, Rusty. And a problem." He glanced at Violet. His eyes moved past her to the tree line. Whatever he saw there made his jaw set. He rested the axe against the block. "Inside," he said. He closed the door behind them and slid a bar across it. The room smelled of oil and dried herbs. On a shelf near the window sat a potted fern with pale, near-white fronds that seemed to hold their own soft light. Violet stared at it. "He's been trailing us since the stone," she said. "I know what's been trailing you." Rusty crossed to the window and looked out through a slat. "He comes to the edge of my clearing sometimes. Never closer. Not a trapper. Not a wolf either, not all the way." "What is he?" "Something in between. Been alone a long time." Rusty turned. His face was hard, but his voice went quieter. "He watches the ones who help the cast-outs. He hasn't hurt anyone I know of." Violet looked at the barred door. Then at the fern. Then at Rusty. "I want to speak to him." Rusty studied her. "Front step. Alone. I'll be at the window with a bow. If he lunges, I put one through him." Violet stepped out. The clearing was still. She waited. He came from the ferns on two legs, low and cautious. Brown fur, human shoulders, a wolf's face. His eyes were blue and steady. He stopped ten paces off. "I'm not a trapper," Violet said. "I'm building a place. For people the packs threw out." He watched her for a long moment. Then he dipped his head, once, and slipped back into the trees. He was not an enemy. But he knew where she was going now.