Beth Wonders's Arc

Chapter 14 of 29

Beth found the crack in the north wall of her cathedral, behind a row of unfinished pews. Cold air pushed through it. On the far side, the trees of her half-built world stood in a hush. The pale orb drifted between two trunks, waiting. It had no face. It made no sound. Beth stayed back from the gap and watched it watch her. "Okay," she said. "You want in. I want to know why." The orb did not move. Her cat sat behind her ankles, ears flat. She could feel her magic thinning at the seam, pulled toward the orb like water toward a drain. She would not step through. She would not touch it. She needed a name for the thing before she chose a door. She went back to the scrying vanity and pulled a shard of purple wood off the ruined pew, then a strand of her own hair. She dropped both on the black glass. "Show me what it is. Not where. What." The mirror clouded. An image formed: a slender tree woven from silver thread, translucent leaves, gold berries burning soft at its branches. A sun-tree. A gift tree. Then the image cracked and reformed. Under the silver threads, something else showed through — a tall crystal spike carved with runes she did not know, humming cold. Two things wearing one skin. A lure with a blade inside. Beth sat back. Her hands shook. Not a spirit. Not a gift. A trap dressed up pretty, sent by someone who knew she was weak and reaching. The star merchant, maybe. Frostwyn. Someone else who had learned her price. She did not need to know who. She needed to shut the door before it opened wider. She went back to the crack with her cat at her heel. The orb had drifted closer. She could see the seam clearly now — a hairline of unfinished world, thin as a thread. She pressed her palm to the stone above it and drew the small hot knot of star magic out from under her ribs. It hurt. She had so little left. She spent it anyway, pouring it into the seam until the stone flushed warm and the crack sealed shut from the inside. The orb bumped against the closed wall once. Twice. Then it drifted back into the trees and was gone. Beth slid down the wall to the floor. She had shut it out. She had also spent the last free magic she carried on her body. Her cathedral now held two sealed walls — one of ice she could not open, one of her own making she could not afford to open again. Whoever had sent the lure knew where her seams were. They would send another. And she had nothing left in her ribs to spend on the next one. She would need more star magic. Soon. From somewhere new.