Zadie Rose's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Zadie walked half a day toward the black hills before the road ran out. Ahead the ground turned to loose black stone. Steam hissed from cracks. She saw a bird land on a warm rock and drop dead in a heartbeat. The path Amara gave her ended here. Beyond lay poison air and hidden pits. Zadie had the way, but no safe road through it. Unprepared, she would die before she found the egg. A man stood at the edge of the stone. Black silk hung to his boots. His eyes were pale as milk water, though he was not blind. He did not walk toward her. He waited, and the smoke seemed to bend away from him. Zadie had heard his name in whispers. Kael Ravenmoor. Ruler of shadows. Feared by every witch who spoke of him at all. "You want the egg," he said. He did not raise his voice. She still heard each word. "The hills killed the last three who tried. The air burns the lungs. The pits open under your feet." "Then help me," Zadie said. "Or stand aside." He studied her. "The shadows know every safe step across this stone. I can send them ahead of you. You will breathe. You will not fall." He paused. "But shadow work has a cost." "Name it." He looked at the cold obsidian pendant at her throat. The copper wrap. The purple rune, dark now, drained of its fire. "That stone drank your fury for three nights. It remembers the shape of your rage." He held out one pale hand. "Give it to me. Shadows feed on borrowed anger. Yours will light my court for a year." Zadie's hand closed over the pendant. It was her only guard against the nights. Amara had given it to hold the fire when she slept. Without it she was open. But the stone was spent already. It had failed her. And the egg was the true cure her second self demanded. She lifted the chain over her locs and set the pendant in his palm. Kael closed his fingers. The rune flared purple, then went black for good. Shadows peeled off his robe and poured across the stone. They spread into a thin road, dark and firm. "Walk where they walk," he said. "Do not step off." Zadie walked. The shadows found each safe stone. The burning air thinned above the dark path. She reached the warm hollow Amara had described and knelt by the nest. The egg had already cracked. A small dragon looked up at her with bright, knowing eyes. It pressed its warm head to her hand. Something in her chest pulled tight, then eased. She cradled the hatchling and turned back. The road home lay open. But her pendant was gone. Tonight she would sleep with a living fire in her arms and no stone to hold the other one down.