Elaria Silverstan's Arc

Chapter 40 of 42

Elaria reached the quarry on the third day, ahead of the red coat. The basin sank deep into cut stone, filled high with dark water. Her rod leaned over the edge and pointed straight down. The paired stone waited under the surface. She could not see how deep. The water looked black and still. She knelt and dipped her hand in. The cold bit even her. Her own ice blood could survive it, but her muscles would seize before she reached the bottom. She would drown herself retrieving the stone. She needed a way to pull it up without going under. On the bank sagged a waterlogged bunkhouse, its lower boards swollen and black. Miners had lived here once. Inside she found coils of chain, iron pulleys, and beams stacked against a wall. Enough parts to build a lifting rig. But she did not know how to work underwater, and the stone sat too deep to hook blind. "You'll want weight on that line, not just a hook." A man stood in the doorway. White hair, bare feet in worn sandals, a single pearl at his throat. He coughed once, hard, and did not apologize for it. "I dove thirty years for pearls. I know what that water does to a person." He eyed her, then the chain. "Mateo. I live past the ridge. Heard your rod clicking from the bank." Elaria studied him. His chest rattled when he breathed. "I cannot send you down," she said. "The cold would kill you before it killed me." "I'm not going down. You are." He limped to the beams and tested one. "But not blind, and not for long." He pointed at the rod. "That names the spot. We drop a weighted line there. You follow it down, clip the stone, come up. The cold only has to hold off for one breath." They worked until dusk. Mateo showed her how to set the pulleys and brace the frame against the quarry lip. Elaria froze the loose joints solid with her hand, locking the beams into a rigid crane. Frost crawled up the axle and sheathed the gears. The machine would not slip now. She tied the weighted line to her wrist and lowered herself into the water. The cold closed over her like a fist. She let the weight drag her down the rod's bearing. Her lungs burned. At the bottom her fingers found a smooth stone, warm against the freeze. She clipped the chain to it and yanked twice. Mateo turned the gear. The crane groaned. Elaria broke the surface, gasping, as the stone rose dripping beside her. It flared bright, matching the crystal in her coat. She held both halves at last. Mateo coughed into his fist and looked at the glowing pair. "That's what the red coat wants," he said. "He's a day out. Maybe less." He wiped his mouth. "You've got your stone. Now you've got a man racing to take it."