Zephyr Riddle's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Zephyr knelt beside Aldric in the gray morning light, checking the bandage one last time before they moved. The cloth had slipped during the night, and Zephyr saw something he wasn't meant to see — a raised mark burned into the skin beneath the wound. Not a cut. A brand. His hands went still. He knew the shape. He'd seen it on an iron gate twined with thorny vines, years ago, guarding a road he'd promised himself never to walk again. The same crest stared up at him now from Aldric's arm. Aldric opened his eyes and read Zephyr's face. "You know them," he said. Zephyr nodded once. A small hand mirror lay beside Aldric's pack, its worn silver edge catching the light. Zephyr glimpsed his own face in it — pale, tight, older than a minute ago. Aldric pushed a bloodstained satchel toward him. "Open it." Inside were folded papers, maps, a list of names. Near the bottom, a rough sketch of the granary, marked with a clean red circle. Zephyr's stomach dropped. They already knew. The refuge he'd scouted for months was a pin on someone else's map. "How long have you been carrying this?" he asked. "Since they branded me," Aldric said. "I was going to burn it before you saw." Zephyr closed the satchel and stood. The granary was dead. Months of patient work, gone in the time it took a bandage to slip. He looked down at Aldric — wounded, marked, honest — and felt the plan reshape itself around the wreckage. "New location," Zephyr said. "And we leave before the sun clears the trees." Aldric nodded. Outside, a bird lifted from the grass and didn't come back down.