Zara Grayson's Arc

Chapter 2 of 6

Inside the elven village, Zara held the charm high and followed its green light. The stone pulled her down a lane of stone houses. Then it flickered. The steady glow stuttered, dimmed, and sparked again. Zara stopped cold. She knew that flicker. Fear did that. Some scrap of her old dread still clung to the stone, and if it grew, the charm would lie again. She could not walk up to a stranger and call him her mate on a broken spell. "Steady," she whispered to the stone. "I emptied you. I did." But her hand shook, and the light shook with it. She pressed the charm to her chest and breathed slow. The glow smoothed for a moment, then jumped once more. Her doubt fed it. The harder she tried to calm down, the more she thought about failing, and the more it flickered. "That charm's contaminated." A man leaned against a tree near the lane, arms crossed. He was tall and tan, with a scar cut down one cheek and white hair falling past his shoulders. A crossbow scar, she guessed, from the way he watched the rooftops. He did not smile. "Excuse me?" Zara said. "Fear leaks into charms. Yours is flickering. Means fear." He pushed off the tree. "You a witch?" "Zara. And you're rude." "Fabin." He nodded at the stone. "You want it clean, stop fighting the fear. You can't. Move it somewhere else." Zara stared at him. She had done exactly that once, poured her dread into old wood. But she had nothing here to pour it into. "Move it where?" Fabin held out his hand, palm up. It was scarred too. "Into me. I've got worse than your leftover doubt. A little more won't matter." It was reckless. She knew nothing about him. But the charm sputtered again, and she was out of time before her true match slipped past on this dying light. Zara set the stone in his open palm and gripped his wrist. "Take the scared part," she said. "Just that." The stone flared hot between their hands. Zara felt the doubt drain out of it, out of her, sliding into his skin. Fabin's jaw tightened. He did not pull away. The green light steadied, then burned clean and bright. No flicker. It pointed past his shoulder, straight down the lane toward the tall palace at the village center. Zara laughed, shaky with relief. "It works. It really works now." Fabin looked at where the light pointed. His face went hard. "That's the palace. My father's palace." He handed the stone back. "They shot at me this morning. Six crossbows. Forty feet." Zara's stomach dropped. Her true match waited inside a palace that shot people on sight. And the only elf who might get her past those gates was the one they had just turned away.