Onyx Ridge's Arc

Chapter 3 of 11

At the split arch Juno lifted the slab again and started down the path toward town. The foxling trotted between them, four tails swaying. Onyx walked on his own now, but his legs still shook, and every few steps Juno slowed without looking back so he could catch up. He watched her shoulders carry the black stone like it weighed nothing. He tried to think of what a man owed a woman who had walked into poisoned fungi for a stranger. "I can pay you," he said. "Coin. Tools. I have good chisels." "I don't need chisels." "Herbs, then. I'll clear the beds behind the temple for you. All summer." She glanced down at him. Her brown eyes caught the last light. "I already clear them." He fell quiet. The foxling darted ahead, then circled back to check on him, then darted ahead again. Juno hummed something low that had no tune he knew. Twice she stopped to let him rest against a tree. Once she pressed her wide palm to his back and the warmth loosened the ache in his ribs. She said nothing about it. By the time his moss-covered studio came into view, the moons were up. Half-finished carvings stood around the door like patient guests. Juno set the slab down beside them, square in the yard where the morning sun would strike it first. She straightened and rolled her shoulders once. "There," she said. "Your rock." "Come inside. Eat something. Please." "No. Sleep. Drink water till it runs clear." She looked at the slab, then at him. "I meant what I said. Make it worth the night." She turned and walked off toward the trees. The foxling gave him one long blue-eyed look and followed her. Her antlers caught the moonlight once between the trunks, and then she was gone. Onyx stood in his yard a long time. He had offered coin. He had offered labor. She had refused both. He understood, standing there with his hand on the cold stone, that she had not asked for payment. She had set a standard. The debt was the sculpture itself, and nothing smaller would clear it. He went inside. He drank two cups of water. He lit the lamp and carried it back out to the slab. He walked around it once, twice, dragging his cracked knuckles along the surface. He had come home meaning to carve a god. He kept seeing her instead. The antlers. The hooves planted in the dirt. The hand on his sternum. The way she had lifted the stone and said get up. He picked up a lump of chalk from the bench. He knelt beside the black slab and began to draw. Not a god. A woman with antlers, standing straight, both hands open. He worked until the lamp burned out.