Willow's Arc

Chapter 9 of 12

Willow heard voices cutting through the trees before she saw torchlight. The elders were coming, just like Stryker said they would. She counted at least six shadows moving between the trunks, maybe more behind them. The beast shifted in the water at her back, chains scraping against its scales. The first elder stepped into the lamplight carrying a rolled parchment. He nailed it to a wooden post near the abandoned coffee shop without looking at her. When he stepped back, Willow saw the poster clearly. Three cloaked figures were drawn across yellowed paper above a single word: WANTED. Below the image, her name was written in bold ink. Not the elders. Not the cult. Just Willow, named as the one holding the crystal. The elder smiled at her. "A salamander paid good coin for that information," he said. "Seems you're worth more to hunters than you ever were to us." Willow pulled the crystal from her pocket and held it up where everyone could see. The beast's eyes flared brighter behind her, matching the glow in her palm. She looked at the wanted poster, then at the elders, then at Gnewt and Stryker standing beside her. The elders wanted the crystal. Bounty hunters would come for her now too. But the crystal wasn't going back on any pedestal for them to use. She closed her fist around it and felt its warmth pulse against her skin. "Come and take it," she said. The elders didn't move forward. Neither did she. The standoff had begun, and everyone in Serpent Village would know her name by morning.