Amber Honeywell's Arc

Chapter 3 of 14

Amber sat with the crystal vessel until the fire was only embers. The honey held its strange color in the dark. She was about to close the ledger when a heavy sound struck the door — not a knock, a fall. She crossed the floor of her honeycomb-walled home and pulled the door open. A man lay slumped on the threshold, snow in his beard, one hand still gripping the frame. Durgan Embersmyth. She knew him by the braids and the iron at his belt. Beside him in the snow lay a small painted figure — a child's toy, a bright fox with a rainbow tail, worn smooth at the ears from being held. He pushed it toward her before he tried to speak. "My sister's girl," he said. "Three days. They say three days. I need to see it before it happens." Amber knelt. She had never given the honey to anyone. It was not finished. She did not know if it was finished. That was the whole shape of the work now — to not know and continue anyway. "Inside," she said. She got an arm under his shoulder and brought him to the hearth. She set the vessel on the table between them. A pale shimmer moved at the edge of the lamp light, the shape of a woman in a long robe, barely there. The ghost of Madrigal Thornwhisper watched without speaking. Amber felt the watching as a weight on her hands. She lifted a single spoon of the honey and held it out. "I don't know if it works," she said. "That is the only honest thing I can tell you." Durgan took it. He swallowed. He did not thank her. "Don't mistake this for hope," he said. "I came because you were the last door." He sat down hard in the chair. Within a minute his eyes closed. His breathing slowed and went even. Amber watched his face. Then Madrigal spoke, quiet as a leaf settling. "He is dreaming. The color holds." Amber sat back. The vessel was lighter by one spoon. The recipe was out of her house and inside a man now, and she could not take it back. She picked up the painted fox from the floor where it had fallen and set it on the table beside him, so it would be the first thing he saw when he woke and told her what he had seen.