Melissa's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

Melissa knelt among the broken statues until her knees ached. She could not tell one shard from another. Even if she found her lover whole, she had no way to wake him. She would only weep before cold stone. The winged dog nudged her shoulder. Then it lifted its head and stared at the field's far edge, where a small figure stood watching. The woman came toward her slowly, robes trailing over the rubble. Purple flowers crowned her braided hair. Tears ran down her face without stopping, as if she had wept for years. Melissa knew her. This was Lyra Mournsong, the woman who had once loved her before the curse took hold. Lyra had spent those years searching for a way to undo Melissa's gaze. "I felt him die out here," Lyra said. "The one you loved. I felt it the moment your eyes touched him." Her voice did not accuse. It only grieved. Melissa stood. "Then you know I cannot bring him back. I have no cure." "I have one." Lyra reached into her robes. She drew out a glass vessel that glowed with a pale light. A single lotus turned inside it. "Moonbloom. I brewed it while I searched for you. It reverses stone to flesh." She held it out, but her hand shook. "There is only enough for one." Melissa took the vessel. Its light warmed her fingers. Then Lyra pulled a worn letter from her sleeve. The wax seal was cracked. "His letter to you. He gave it to me before he went to the Reach. The elixir alone will not choose the right stone. You must read his own words over him. His voice, kept in ink, calls his shape back." Melissa's throat tightened. "His statue is smashed. The hunter broke half this field before I stopped him." She looked at the shards around her feet. "I do not know which pieces are his." Lyra knelt and pressed her palm flat against the ground. Her tears fell onto the dust. "The dead speak to me. That is my burden." She was silent a long moment. Then she pointed to a slab near the field's edge, cracked across the chest but not shattered. "There. His heart-gem is still whole. He is not among the broken ones." Melissa ran to it. The stone showed a man's face, split but joined. She unstopped the vessel and read the letter aloud, word by clumsy word, her voice breaking. She poured the elixir over the cracked chest. The stone darkened. Color spread through it like water through cloth. The cracks sealed. But the change stopped at his shoulders. His face stayed gray and still. The vessel was empty. "It was not enough," Lyra whispered. "Half a man woke. Half remains stone." Melissa gripped the warm, living hand of her lover. His fingers did not close. She needed more moonbloom, and she had poured out the last of it.