Philo Amarus's Arc

Chapter 10 of 12

The chamber was quiet again. Water dripped from Eris's hair onto the tile. Philo turned to the swan. Its heart still pulsed behind the golden ribs, slow and steady, casting pink light on the walls. Eris walked to it before he could speak. She reached out and laid her palm flat against the glowing heart. The light dimmed. Not slowly. It dropped like a lamp turned down, from bright pink to a dull ember in one breath. Eris tried to pull her hand back. Her fingers stayed pressed to the swan as if the metal had swallowed them. She looked at Philo, and for the first time in a long time, she looked afraid. Philo grabbed her wrist and pulled. Her hand did not move. The heart faded another shade. He pressed his own palm over hers and felt the swan's warmth going cold under her skin. He stopped pulling. He thought of his mother's stories about a place uphill from the lake, a small temple with pink water and vines that grew over the pillars. Healers lived there. One in particular, a woman his mother trusted, tended the spring. Philo pushed his flame into the swan's chest instead of yanking. The heart flickered, caught, and lifted Eris's hand free with a soft click. Where her palm had touched, a red gem hung now on a fine chain, pulled from the swan's center as if it had been waiting for her. Philo caught it before it fell. The chain settled cool against his knuckles. The swan's heart, hollow now, went dark. Eris cradled her hand to her chest. Her fingers were pale and stiff. "It took something," she said. Philo lifted the pendant. The red gem was warm, and it pulsed once, the same rhythm the swan had kept. He understood then that the swan had given her its heart, and that she would need to give it back before the warmth in her hand ran out. He looped the chain around her neck himself, so she would not have to use the stiff hand. Then he took her good hand in his. "I know where to go," he said. "My mother spoke of a woman at the pink spring. Thessalia. She tends the heart-water there. She will know what this is." Eris nodded. She did not argue, which frightened him more than the dimming had. They climbed out of the chamber together, the pendant burning quietly between them, and Philo set his feet on the path uphill before the light in the gem could fade.