Elaria Silverstan's Arc

Chapter 16 of 22

The tunnel widened into a low outdoor pocket where the ruin's roof had fallen in long ago. Snow drifted through the gap, and the walls opened onto a flat crossroads under a pale sky. Elaria stopped at the edge and checked the cradle. Lia's breath still ticked steady against the cloth, and the ice figure inside had not yet thawed. The blanket at her chest was damp now. She had maybe two hours before the snow inside it gave out. Ahead of her stood a stone signpost with four carved arms spread against the wind. Elaria stepped close and read each arm in turn. Backed Camps. Abandoned Camps. Ice Covered. Iced Ruins. Covered Ruins. The names meant nothing to her. She had never heard a traveler speak them. She pulled her folded route map from her coat and spread it against the base of the post. The ink lines ran across tundra she had crossed weeks ago, red trails looping around lakes and ridges she recognized. None of the names on the signpost appeared on the paper. The map ended where the glacier began. She refolded it and pushed it back into her coat. It was useless here. She turned in place and saw the shelter then, set back from the crossroads under a peaked wooden roof. It was small and open-fronted, its central post dark with age. She walked to it and stepped inside out of the wind. The post was covered in carved names, hundreds of them, cut shallow and deep by different hands. Beside many of the names, travelers had scratched short notes. A place name, then an arrow, then a word. Iced Ruins — dead end. Backed Camps — food, three days. Covered Ruins — crystal road, hard climb. Elaria set the orb on the floor and read down the post with her finger. She found the phrase three times. Covered Ruins, and each time the note pointed the same way. One traveler had cut a small open eye beside it, the same mark from the stone at the edge of her old map. She stood a long moment with her finger on the carving. Someone who had walked toward the crystal had left this for whoever came next. She went back to the signpost and stood under the arm marked Covered Ruins. It pointed to a narrow track that ran between two banks of blown snow, downward and out of sight. Elaria checked the cradle again. Lia's breath still came. The blanket at her chest was colder on one side than the other, the snow inside melting unevenly. She lifted the orb and started down the track. The signpost fell behind her, and the shelter with it, and the names of the places she would never visit.