CHAPTER 140, Continued
Snow fell. The frigid winds blew stronger.
She arrived at the pavilion early, Sundamar lighting the enclosed fire while she picked out a new piece of wood from the pile.
Ignored where it hung from the ceiling, a golden thread had spun in the breeze for months without effect. Chance – or an unseen hand – would see it detach that morning, falling down to half-drape across the sheet of paper that lay undisturbed upon the books, lifting a corner far enough that the next gust through the flap dislodged the page.
She spotted the fallen writing when selecting her chisel. Habitually keeping tidy the space where she sculpted, she collected it from the floor, puzzled by the curving script that resembled the lapping water at the lake.
What should she do? She waited for an answer.
Stop it falling again: that was best.
She thought over how to proceed.
Eventually, she reasoned that it needed to be weighed down.
Eventually, she recognised the pile of books could do this.
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Pleased to have managed on her own, she lifted the uppermost book–
Sundamar found her staring at the cover underneath. “Caught your interest?”
She set the unread poem down on the bench, placing the book she held on top, collecting the volume that entranced her. Without replying she sat, engrossed by a sprawling word she couldn’t fully sound out, getting only as far as ah, em, puh, huh, ih, and buh.
The warden let her be as he minded the entrance.
She opened the cover. Reading was beyond her, but the pictures…
An eternity passed as she absorbed them.
Then the spell was broken, and she stood and set the book back in place, taking up a broad chisel as she resumed her routine, scraping, snagging, forcing the dead matter to take on life, hewing from what had lived and died a shape that was not dissimilar to that which had come before, seeing with fresh eyes that were unfocused as their green grew vibrant, fixated on images that played out in the wreckage behind them, played and laughed and danced and screamed and screamed and called her name as they were snatched and dragged from her despite her protest, whereupon the resurrected verdant in her gaze lowered into depths never before fathomed, darker than any moonless night, hotter than the roaring flame that she willed would scour the writhing, monstrous branches in whose shadow she had been imprisoned since the fated day of her birth.
Gaeleath came in, greeted by Sundamar. Leisurely, the artist meandered to her plinth, amused by the icon with unsmooth skin and rear legs better made for leaping than swimming. “That’s not a very good frog…”
“No,” agreed the dragon, blood in her eyes. “No, it isn’t.”
End of Chapter 140