Onyx Ridge's Arc

Chapter 6 of 11

Onyx worked through the morning on the crooked finger. He had the bend right and was cutting the nail when he heard boots on the path. Not Juno's step. Juno had hooves, and she came quiet. These boots were leather and loud. He kept his chisel on the stone until the man stopped at the edge of the yard. A priest. Bone-white hair, cracked lips, ink black under the nails. Onyx had seen him shouting in the temple square. Kael Lorne. The gods' man, or the one who claimed to be. "Put it down," Kael said. He was looking at the sculpture, not at Onyx. "They've heard about it. They've heard she stands in stone taller than their own faces. Break it now, or they will break you with it." Onyx set the chisel on the block. He wiped dust off his hands. "Who told them." "Everyone tells them. That's not the question." Kael held out his palms. The skin was scorched black in the shape of hands larger than his own. "I've seen what comes. Put the hammer to it. I'll stand witness that you obeyed." Onyx looked at the stone. The throat he had cut yesterday. The shoulder that sat higher on one side. The finger under his chisel. Every true line about the woman who had carried him out of the fungi and set the slab in his yard. "No," he said. Kael's mouth worked. "You don't understand what refusal costs." "I owe her the finished piece. That's the cost I already took." "She's a demigod. They erased her name. They will erase yours." "Then they'll erase it after I finish." Kael stared at him a long moment. Then he lowered his scorched hands and nodded once, the way a man nods at a coffin. He turned and walked back down the path. He did not shout. He did not curse. That was worse than if he had. Onyx stood with his hand on the stone until the boots were gone. His chest was tight. He made himself breathe. Then he heard the soft sound of hooves in the grass. Juno came around the side of the studio, a basket of cut herbs on her hip, antlers catching the light through the trees. She looked at the path where Kael had gone. She looked at Onyx. "He was here about me," she said. "About the statue." "Same thing." She set the basket down. Her brown eyes were flat and steady. "You should have said yes to him." "I didn't." She was quiet. Then she said, "Then work faster. Whatever they send, they'll send it before you're done." She walked into the studio without waiting for an answer. Onyx picked up the chisel. His hand was not steady. He set it on the crooked finger anyway and cut the next line.