Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 14 of 19

The summons came at first light. A boy in pale robes stood at the edge of the grove and would not step closer to the tree. He said the elder wanted them both. He said the word both like it hurt him. Sienna took Clementine's hand. They followed the boy up the path to a low stone hall where Konda waited with a book open on her lap and a stub of charcoal in her fingers. Konda did not stand. She looked at Clementine in the earth-colored robe and then at Sienna in her mill clothes, and she wrote something down. "The vessel is gone," she said. "The barrier is thin. I do not know how thin. I do not know how long." She closed the book on her thumb. "The scourge will come. It burns water. It burns skin. It has been held back by your line for a thousand years, and now it will test the seam." Sienna started to explain about Sarec, about the statue, about how none of this was Clementine's doing. Konda raised one hand. "I do not care who opened the door. You two stood in it. You will close it, or you will watch the fields go black." Sienna felt the pendant warm against her collarbone. She thought of the wanted poster, the mill, the six months of hiding, and how small all of it had been compared to this. "Tell us what to do," she said. Konda shook her head once. "I am writing what I see. I do not have the answer yet. Find one. Bring it back before the first crop turns." She looked at Clementine a long moment. "I raised the vessel. I did not raise you. I am sorry for that." Then she opened the book again and went back to writing, and the meeting was over. Outside, Clementine's hands were shaking. Sienna took them and held them still. "I am not going back in the tree," Clementine said, flat. "I know," Sienna said. "We find another way." They said it out loud twice, like a bargain. They walked without deciding where until they reached the old statue at the edge of the grove, the god who had given up his soul to quiet the land long before either of them was born. Pilgrims called it the Aegis of Mercy. Sienna remembered how the statue had turned into Sarec and returned Clementine to her. They knelt on the cracked stone at its feet. Clementine bowed her head. Sienna kept hers up and looked at the god's blank eyes. "I don't know how to ask," she said. "I have never asked for anything I wasn't owed." Clementine's fingers found hers. "Ask for time," she said. "Ask for a way that keeps us both." Sienna closed her eyes and did.