Sapphire Crystalline's Arc

Chapter 4 of 12

Sapphire barred the door and waited. The house was quiet. Her mother slept in the loft. Her brother sat by the cold hearth, cleaning a knife he would not need. She counted hours by the sun on the floorboards. Kael would come before moonrise tomorrow. If Vexeron came first, none of it mattered. He came at dusk. She did not hear the door. She turned from the water basin and he was in the room, hood down, hands folded. The lamp did not brighten for him. Her brother stood up slow and stayed against the wall. "You owe me a favor," Vexeron said. "I have come to name it." Sapphire dried her hands on her apron. She kept her voice flat. "Name it." "There is a keep three valleys east. Broken towers. The locals call it Dreadfall. In its west garden grows a flower with dusky petals. Duskbloom. I want one, cut at the stem, alive." "When." "Now. Tonight." She felt her stomach drop. "Kael comes back tomorrow. Before moonrise. I have to be here." "That is your problem." "Three valleys east is two days on foot." Vexeron reached into his sleeve and set a glass sphere on the table. Inside it a small winged figure hung in still light, wings spread, eyes open. "One step in. One step out. It breaks on the return. Do not drop it." She stared at the sphere. "Why me." "Because Duskbloom cuts a cursed hand and no one else's. You are cursed. I am not." He tilted his head. "Refuse and I take back what I gave. The hound handler wakes clear-eyed at dawn." She picked up the sphere. It was warmer than the room. She stepped through. Cold hit her face. She stood in a courtyard of black stone, towers snapped like broken teeth against a purple sky. The garden was a stretch of frost and dead vines. One flower stood in the middle of it, petals dark, center pale as a coin. She knelt and cut it with her belt knife. The stem bled clear sap onto her thumb. Her thumb burned and did not blister. She crushed the sphere in her fist. Her own kitchen. Vexeron held out a gloved hand. She placed the flower in it. He closed his fingers around the stem and it did not burn him. "Debt paid," he said. He was gone before she drew breath. Sapphire sat down. Her thumb still stung. She had lost no hours. The sun had barely moved. Whatever she had just handed him, it was not her cure, and it was not her problem. She put the knife in the basin and washed the sap from her hand. Kael would come tomorrow with her father's secret. Vexeron's leash was off her neck. She wanted to know what he would do with the flower. She made herself not ask.