Vivienne Ashford's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Vivienne stared at the black gauntlet on her table. Kane's soldiers knew this house. They would come back. She could run again, but they had tracked her here once. They would track her anywhere. She had to know how before she moved another step. She dropped to her knees and searched. She checked her clothes, her boots, the creatures' scales. Then she found it. A small metal disk stuck under the hem of her jacket. It blinked with a slow red light. A voice called from the stairs. "Viv? Is that you?" Cory came down fast, glasses crooked, still buttoning his shirt. He froze when he saw the mud, the gauntlet, the dragon curled by the wall. "What happened? Where have you been? I called you for days." His hands shook as he reached for her. He was not a fighter. He fixed things, read things, worried. But he crossed the room to her without a pause. "They put a tracker on me," Vivienne said. She held up the disk. "That's how they found the house. They're coming, Cory. Soldiers. Real ones." She saw the fear jump into his eyes. He looked at the door, then back at her. "Then we throw it out the window and drive," he said. "The car's out front." "They'll follow the signal. And they'll follow us." Vivienne shook her head. "There's no place they can't reach. Not with this." She crushed the disk under her heel. The red light died. But she knew a dead tracker only bought minutes. They had already sent the location. The fairy's light bloomed in the corner. She hovered near the front hall, then flew a slow circle and pointed out the window, toward the tree line beyond the yard. In the grass stood a stone base, cracked and marked with old carvings. A sword rose from it, its blade lit with a soft blue glow. The same stone. The same blade that had taught Vivienne to fight. The fairy had brought it within reach. Vivienne understood. The blade did more than teach. It answered wishes. She took Cory's hand and pulled him out the door, across the grass, to the stone. She gripped the wrapped handle. It was warm. "I wish," she said, "for Cory and me to be safe from every danger that hunts us." The blade flared white. Light poured up her arm and spread over them both. It sank into her skin and vanished. The glow was gone. She felt no different. No wall, no shield. Just the quiet yard and the warm handle in her fist. Then she heard engines on the road. Kane had come. Vivienne turned toward the sound, Cory at her side. The wish was made. But she did not yet know what it had bought her, or what price the blade would ask when the soldiers reached the gate.