Auhrnyah's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

The crystals held the answer, but they would not speak. Auhrnyah and Nerion had pressed their hands to the great cluster for days. The vision came and faded, always the same, never more. So Auhrnyah left Nerion in the fields and went to find the one person who might read the stones. Her people spoke of a small settlement built from amethyst, where the last Elder still lived. She had never gone. She went now, her orbs trailing behind her. The settlement sat low against the crystal ground. Faceted houses caught the light, their tiny roofs glowing violet. A domed hall rose above them, its surface deep and dark like a held breath. Auhrnyah climbed the crystal steps. Inside, an old man knelt beside a shallow bowl of stones. His hair fell white and long. A band of amethyst crossed his brow. His hands shook as he sorted the stones, one by one. "Elder Tak," she said. He did not look up. "The orbs came before you." His voice was soft and worn. "They have not glowed like that in my lifetime." He raised his eyes. They were kind and tired. "You dream of the wall." Auhrnyah knelt across from him. "Every night. And a man dreams it too. An outsider. When he touches the amethyst, the stone lights, and his skin lights with it." She leaned forward. "How can a stranger from another world answer to our crystals?" Tak set down the stone in his hand. For a long moment he only breathed. "Because the stone does not answer to a world," he said. "It answers to blood that can carry it." He touched the band on his brow. "Long ago, some of our kind left this planet. They carried seed crystals to worlds that had none. Had children on these worlds. Our people began to forget us and in turn their children forgot us. Without our history being shared and taught… our people just lost their way. Their crystals turned gray and the world attached started to follow." Auhrnyah's chest tightened. "His people are dying. Their fields are gray." "Then he is not a stranger," Tak said. "He is a lost branch of the same root. The dream did not join two strangers. It joined two souls who forgot they were kindled together." The orbs pulsed bright around her. She understood at last. The dreams, the man, the glowing marks were one thing, not three. "The crystals never chose two worlds," she said. "They chose one spirits, split apart." Tak nodded slowly. "That is why you both hear the calling. Only twin flames can wake the healing." His hand trembled toward hers. "But knowing this is not enough, child. The waking is a rite. I am the last who remembers it, and I am nearly gone. You must learn it from me before I go." Auhrnyah looked at the old man's shaking hands. The mystery was solved. A harder task had opened in its place. Nerion was not an outsider at all, and the only man who could teach them how to heal his world had little time left.