Zane's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The wolf's howl faded behind them. Zane and Maya walked out into the trees. The moon hung low and full, and its edge had begun to bleed red. Maya stopped and gripped her arm. The black cracks had spread past her elbow now, glowing hot. "Tonight," she said. "It comes tonight." Zane knew what that meant. She had the god's name. But a name spoken in the open, with no walls and no ground of their own, was a name thrown to the wind. He needed somewhere to make their stand. "Not here," Zane said. "We fight it where we choose." He looked back at the cave mouth. Green symbols still glowed along its stone arch. Then he looked at the stream. It ran toward home. His cottage had walls. It had a door he could bar. "The house," he said. "We go now." Maya shook her head. "No time. Look at the moon." The red had swallowed half of it. She was right. They would not make the cottage before it turned full. Then figures moved through the trees. Two of them, quick, calling names. Zane's chest went tight. His mother and father broke into the clearing, breath ragged, mud on their jeans. They had come into the forest after their children. "You found the witch," his father said. Not a question. His mother caught Maya's arm and saw the cracks. Her face did not break. "We know a place," she said. "We used it before. When the curse first came." She led them off the path to a wall of red roses, thick and blooming, taller than Zane. She pushed the stems aside. Behind them stood a low door set in stone. "Your grandmother warded this ground," his father said. "The god can't cross the roses. Inside, its own name binds it." Zane understood. This was the safe place he had no way to find alone. His parents had carried it all along. They went in. Zane barred the door. The room was small and cold. Above, through a slit in the stone, the moon burned full red. Maya's arm flared. She cried out and dropped to her knees. "Now," their mother said. "Say it now, inside the ward." Maya lifted her head. She spoke the god's name aloud. The word landed like a stone in still water. The cracks on her arm went white, then black, then still. The red drained from the moon slit. Maya's breathing slowed. She was whole. The curse held its breath, chained by the name and the ground. Zane knelt beside his sister. His parents knelt too. For the first time in years, no one kept their distance from him. But the name had bound the god, not banished it. Malachar had said learning a name costs everything you are. Maya looked at her hand, then at Zane, and he saw the fear underneath her calm. The god was leashed now. Something would come to collect the price.