Noria Storn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Noria held the ice flower and waited for the memory to come back. It did not. The recognition had brushed her mind and slipped away. She turned the bloom in the firelight, hoping the blue glints would spark something. Nothing rose to meet them. Without a place to hang the feeling, it faded to a dull ache. She needed more than a flower. She needed the ground it came from. The frost pixie hovered near the cave mouth, watching her. Noria stood and pulled the silver fur cloak close. "You brought me here," Noria said. "You knew the way through the storm. So you know this place." She lifted the flower toward the small winged woman. "Where does this grow?" The pixie's violet eyes fixed on the bloom. She flew a tight circle, then darted out into the calmer air. The blizzard had passed. Noria stepped from the cave and followed the glow across the ice. They walked a long time. The pixie led her over a low rise, and Noria stopped short. Ahead stood a shrine of pale ice and stone. Frost softened its walls. Tall crystal spires rose from its roof and caught the flat grey light. Snow banked against the steps. The doors were carved with deep runes she could not read. Her legs carried her forward before she chose to move. She had climbed these steps. Her feet knew the height of each one. She had stood at this door as a child, small enough to reach only the lowest carving. The recognition did not fade this time. The shrine held it in place. A memory opened like a door swinging wide. She saw hands giving her the ice flower on these very steps. A voice told her the shrine was hers to guard. She was young. The person was tall and kind and she had loved them. She reached for the face. The face would not come. The memory stopped at the edge of it. But the rest stayed. This place was hers. She belonged to it, and it to her. Noria pressed her palm to the cold door. "I have been here," she said. Her voice shook. "This is mine." The pixie landed on the frozen steps and folded her wings. She no longer looked ready to flee. She watched Noria with something like relief. Noria set the ice flower on the top step where the memory had shown it given. She had an anchor now. Not the flower. The shrine. A real place in the world that knew her name before she lost it. But a locked door stood between her and the rest. The runes meant something. The face at the memory's edge meant more. Someone had trusted her to guard this shrine, and that someone had left her out on the ice to wake with nothing. She meant to learn why.