Woodson's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

They left the cave at first light and climbed for three days. Woodson kept three steps back, as she asked. Lunara knew the pass better than any map. She pointed to a ledge that looked solid and named it rotten. She heard a rockslide before it started and pulled him flat against the cliff. Without her, he would have died twice over. He watched her walk ahead, her silver gown dark with melt, and knew he could not have found this road alone. On the fourth night they reached the hidden forest. It grew deep inside a fold of the mountain, pines standing where no pines should. Snow did not fall here. Lunara stopped at the treeline and pressed a hand to a trunk, steadying herself. Her breath came short. Woodson saw her knees buckle and caught her arm before she fell. "I'm fine," she said. But her hand shook in his, and cold sweat stood on her brow. "You're not." He eased her down onto a root. "I've guarded you four days. I've earned the truth. What does the bloom cure? What's killing you?" She looked away. "I told you I would not speak of it." "Then I'm walking blind." He crouched to meet her eyes. "If you drop and I don't know why, I can't help you. Tell me what to watch for." Lunara was quiet a long moment. The fire she had refused to name flickered behind her calm. Then she opened her hand. On her palm, under the pale skin, a black vein spread from wrist to fingers. It pulsed once, slow, like something alive. "It began at my heart," she said. "It moves outward. When it reaches my antlers, I turn to stone. The bloom holds the only sap that stops it." She closed her hand. "I hid this because pity slows people down. I did not want to be carried. I wanted to walk." Woodson stared at the closed fist. "How long since it reached your wrist?" "Two days." His stomach dropped. The road he had planned in his head had weeks in it. She had days. "Then we don't rest here," he said. "We find it tonight." Lunara studied his face. Whatever she looked for, she found it. "The grove is at the forest's heart," she said. "I could not have led a stranger there. I am leading you." It was not thanks. It was trust, plain and final. Woodson pulled her arm over his shoulder and took her weight. She did not pull away this time. They walked into the trees together, three steps no longer between them. He can’t help shake the feeling of her becoming precious to him, not like a jewel, but an important person. Now he counted the black vein under her skin and prayed the flower still bloomed.