Willow Thornheart's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

Dex arrived at dawn with a bouquet in his fist. Roses of every color, wrapped in his rough hands. Willow blinked at the sight. A hunter holding flowers looked wrong and sweet at once. "Peace offering," he muttered, shoving them at her. "And bad news." He would not meet her eyes. "The market's talking. A buyer went quiet. My rare creatures stopped showing up for sale. Now people are asking where they went." Willow set the flowers down. "Who's asking?" "A rival trader. Cornered me last night." Dex's jaw tightened. "Wanted to know where I've been dropping my catches. Offered me triple your pay to talk." He looked at her then, brown eyes steady. "I told him nothing. But he's watching me now. If he follows me here, your father's threat won't matter. There'll be a dozen hunters at the gate." Willow's stomach dropped. One loyal man had just become a trail. She thought fast. "Then you can't keep coming and going the same way. And I can't keep every creature loose in the open woods." She looked toward the shelter, where the golden hatchling chased its own tail and the purple griffin preened on a rock. Too many now. Too visible. "They need walls. A place inside the concealment." Before she could plan more, the sky darkened. A great winged shape dropped through the trees and landed hard enough to shake the ground. A dragon, huge, her green scales edged with pale gold. She folded her wings and fixed her eyes on the baby dragon in the shelter. Dex raised his crossbow on instinct. "Don't," Willow said, pushing the weapon down. The big dragon lowered her head to the hatchling and made a low, gentle sound. The little one ran to her. A mother. She had come for her lost child. Willow understood at once. "She'll stay if we let her. She'll guard them." The matriarch curled around the smaller creatures, a living wall of muscle and fire. No rival trader would walk past that. But Willow still had no true building, only a shelter meant for one fox. She barely slept, turning the problem over. She woke at first light to a sound she did not expect. Hammering that came from nothing. She ran outside. Where an empty clearing had stood, a great house now rose inside the concealment. Rainbow windows. Fireproofed rooms marked for dragons. Ramps and perches and open spaces for every kind of creature. Her father stood at the door, dusting his hands. "You needed room," Gareth said. "I enchanted it overnight. Anchored inside the hidden land. No one outside will ever see it." Willow threw her arms around him. The rival trader could search forever now. Every creature had walls, a mother's guard, and a father's spell. "It's a real sanctuary now," she whispered. Dex stood back, watching the doors swing open, knowing the trail led here and the trail led nowhere.