Celestia Threadwhisper's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

The rescued child slept in the moss under a blanket Lysander had folded twice. Celestia sat by the anchor stone and watched the far cliff. The ledge where the boy had stood was gone. The stone she had spent weeks working toward was gone with it. Any thread she cast now would find nothing to hold. It would fall into the chasm like a dropped ribbon. "We need a new anchor over there," she said. "Something the far clan can secure. Something we can send across without a fairy on the other side." Lysander crouched beside her. "Nothing left to tie to. The rock face above the old ledge is smooth. I looked." "Then we make the anchor. We send it." She sent Thistle down the path to fetch Aria Threadweaver. Aria came within the hour. She was a master spinner who worked alone by choice. Celestia had asked her for help twice before and been turned down both times. Aria's rainbow hair was pinned back with a splinter of bone. She looked at the chasm once and did not look again. "Show me the far wall," Aria said. Celestia pointed. "Smooth stone. No ledge. No crack we can reach." "Then you don't tie. You drive." She sent Thistle back down the path for Grendok. The troll came up slower, wiping grit from his hands. He had cut the anchor stone on this side a week ago and been paid in moth-silk scraps. He did not look pleased to be called again. "No stone to cut," Grendok said. "You said so yourself." "We want you to drive an iron pin into the far wall," Celestia said. "From here." Grendok stared at her. "Across the gap." "Aria will spin a launch cord. You weight the pin. We cast it." "Once," Grendok said. "I throw once. Then I go home." Aria spun through the afternoon. Her thread came off the spindle even and bright, and it did not fray when Celestia tested it against the anchor stone. Grendok shaped a short iron pin with barbs cut backward along the shaft. He tied Aria's cord to the eye of it and hefted the weight in his palm. He threw. The pin crossed the chasm and struck the far wall with a flat crack. It skidded, caught, and held. Grendok pulled the cord tight. The barbs bit deeper into the stone. "Set," Grendok said. He dropped the cord in Celestia's hands and walked back down the path without another word. Celestia wound the cord around the anchor stone twice and knotted it. The line ran taut across the gap for the first time since the guide had snapped. She had her far anchor. Then she saw the pin shift. A fine crack ran out from the iron, pale against the darker rock, and it was growing.