Aerie's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Morning came too soon. Aerie crossed the yard to the small brass-framed greenhouse where the dried herbs were kept. The shelves looked thinner than yesterday. Silverleaf bundles, root powders, bound stems — all halved by the week's rush. Aerie counted twice. The numbers did not change. They carried what was left to the marble weighing station and set the scale swinging. Each pinch was measured now, not poured. A burn salve took half what it should. A poultice, less. Aerie wrote each ration in the ledger and felt the pen drag. One more wounded creature, and there would be nothing to give. Outside, the last green stems hung from the copper drying frame, curling slow in the sun. Not ready. Not for days. Aerie touched a leaf and it crumbled at the edge. The garden could not refill itself fast enough. The east bed sat cracked behind them, still useless. Eldrin came through the gate at midmorning, staff in hand. Aerie met him at the path. "The stores will not last," they said. "Two more days. Maybe one." Eldrin looked at the shelves, then at the line of resting creatures. He did not soften it. "Then we grow up, not out." He walked them to the open ground beside the dome and drew a circle in the dirt with his staff. "A spiral tower. Stacked beds. Water falls from the top and feeds each ring as it drops. You will get four gardens in the space of one. And the water cannot run off, because it has nowhere to go but down." Aerie stared at the circle. It was the answer to the east bed, too — soil that could not lose what it was given. "I cannot build that alone," Aerie said. Eldrin nodded. "The others arrive tonight." By dusk, the herbarium shelves held one day's worth. Aerie locked its brass doors and stood in the yard with the circle still drawn at their feet. The stores were nearly gone. But the ground was marked, and hands were coming. For the first time in a week, the next problem was one Aerie could name out loud.