Sienna Du’for's Arc

Chapter 15 of 19

The stone at the statue's feet went warm under Sienna's knees. She opened her eyes. The god's blank marble face had softened. The cracks along the robe closed. The figure on the plinth stepped down as a boy with white hair, small and barefoot, sandals slapping the brick. Sarec looked at them the way a tired uncle looks at children he has already forgiven. "I heard you the first time," he said. "The blessing is already given." Clementine pulled her hood back and stared. Sienna started to speak and stopped. Sarec waved one hand at the tree behind them, then at the pendant on Sienna's chest. "I took her out of the wood. I gave you the friend you asked for. Both are done." He walked a slow circle around the brick inlay of the grove. He stopped in front of Clementine first. "You are like me," he said. His voice was not a child's now. "You gave your body to hold the land. The difference is that I could reach in and pull you back out. No one did that for me." Clementine's mouth opened. She closed it. She said, "Then what am I?" Sarec shrugged. "A goddess, if you want the word. A woman who was a tree. Both are true." He turned to Sienna. She felt his eyes go through the court manners she still carried and find the girl under them. "And you," he said. "You asked for one true friend. I granted it. That is the whole of what I owe you." He tilted his head. "So. A goddess and a princess. Between the two of you, the scourge is a small thing." He said it the way a father says a fever will pass. Sienna wanted to argue. She did not. She had asked, and he had answered, and the answer was that no more help was coming. Sarec climbed back onto the plinth. The marble crept up his calves. Before it took his face he looked once more at Clementine, then at Sienna, and said, "You have each other. Stop kneeling." The stone closed over him. The grove went quiet. Clementine reached down and pulled Sienna up by both hands. Her grip was steady now. "He isn't going to fix it," Clementine said. "No," Sienna said. "He gave us what he was going to give." They stood together on the cracked brick. For the first time since Konda's summons, Sienna did not feel like a runaway or a shrine. She felt like one half of a pair who had been handed a job. She squeezed Clementine's hand and let the statue watch them walk out of the grove.