Aldric Starweaver's Arc

Chapter 9 of 10

By the time they reached the cabin, the sky had gone grey. Aldric set the grey shard on the table and stared at his empty hands. His tower was rubble. His worktable lay buried under stone. He had the shard now, and the two smaller pieces from before, but no place to fit them together. A shattered sky-crystal needed a steady surface and a still room. One knock, one shudder, and the fragments would scatter again. He had crossed a valley and lost a wolf for this. He would not lose it to a wobbling floor. Galahad dropped onto the plaid-covered bed and pulled off his boots. "Rest first," he said. "You've had no sleep." "There's no time." Aldric tore a piece from the harvest loaf on the shelf and chewed without tasting it. "I need a worktable. A real one. Flat and heavy and true." A low sound came from the doorway. Shadowpaw stood there, ribs sharp under grey fur, one eye scabbed shut. The wolf they had all believed dead at the keep. He had followed their trail across the valley through the rain. He limped to the table, sniffed Aldric's hand, then sat. He did not run. He did not growl. He had chosen. Aldric offered him the rest of the bread. The wolf ate it in two bites. "You tracked us," Aldric said. "Three ridges," Shadowpaw said. "Your scent is clean." He looked at the shard on the wobbling table, then at the far wall. "Wrong table. Too light." Aldric followed the wolf's gaze. Against the back wall of the cabin stood a long worktable he had not used. Its top was wide and unmarked. Carved vines twisted down its legs. Dried flowers, a magnifying glass, and small tools lay across it, left by whoever owned the cabin before. It was solid oak. It did not rock when he pressed his weight on it. "This," Aldric said. He swept the flowers and tools gently to one side. He ran his palm across the surface. Flat. True. No gap under any leg. He knelt and checked each foot against the floor. They held. Galahad came to look. "Steady enough?" Aldric set the first small shard down. It did not slide. He set the second beside it. Then the grey shard, the one that had cost him the most. Three pieces, still on the wood, none rolling away. His hands stopped shaking. "This is the space," he said. "This is where I rebuild it." Shadowpaw lay down beneath the table, blocking the door with his body. Guard and hearth in one. Aldric looked at the three shards lined up before him and felt the ground of the work settle under him at last. But the pieces did not name their own order. He knew where to work now. He did not know how the shards joined. For that he needed the sky-keepers' method, and no book in the cabin held it.