Elaria Silverstan's Arc

Chapter 7 of 22

Elaria worked down the shelf with the vane's bearing locked in her head. The numbers on the plaque still meant nothing alone. She needed something to read them against, or she was just walking on faith into white. A flicker of color cut across the snow below. A small winged figure hovered, no taller than her hand, wings catching light like wet petals. The fairy did not speak plainly. She sang half-sentences about finding Lia before it was too late, about ruins that pointed the way. Then she darted ahead, circling a wide ring of black stones laid flat in the snow. Elaria reached the ring and stopped. It was a great compass built into the valley floor, each stone a marked heading, a star carved at its center. She knelt and matched the plaque's coordinates to the stones. The numbers snapped into place. One spoke of the ring pointed straight at a small stone house tucked against the basin wall, smoke curling from its chimney, runes glowing on its walls that mirrored the vane's old marks. She walked to the door. The fairy waited on the lintel. Elaria had her translation now — the bearing, the ring, and the shelter all agreed. She was no longer wandering blind. She was being pointed at a door, and whatever waited inside was the next thing standing between her and the crystal.