Sylara Helion's Arc

Chapter 6 of 10

Sylara left the vision grove with her answer and her dread. The girl walked beside her, no longer waiting three steps behind. She had the shape of what would heal the web. Now she had to convince the camp to let a broken girl lead the rite. That was the hard part. The festival crowd had gathered at the stone ring. Baskets of fruit, meat, and glowing herbs circled the fire pit. The runes on the standing stones caught the flame. Sylara stepped inside the ring and raised her hands. The people quieted. Then she reached back and drew the girl forward by the wrist. A murmur ran through them, low and hard. They knew this girl. They had watched her sit outside Sylara's door for seven cycles, listening to a voice no one else could hear. "She carries the Mother's voice," Sylara said. "She will feed it into the soil. The web will grow again through her." No one moved to help. An elder near the fire spat into the dirt. "That one is broken," he said. "You broke her. Now you want us to trust her with the rite?" Others took up the sound. A few turned their backs. The girl's glow flickered pale, then dimmed to almost nothing. Silvaeth stepped into the ring. Her cloak dragged frost across the stones. She was the Helivox, the one who guided souls through near-death and back. When she spoke, the crowd stilled by habit. "She survived," Silvaeth said. She always began there. "Seven cycles ago the dose should have killed her. It did not. The Mother kept her. That is not a curse. That is a choice the Mother made." The spitting elder folded his arms. "Words. Show us she is not broken." Veyla walked out of the tree line. Her spear tip glowed faint purple. She stopped beside the girl and faced the crowd. "The girl marked a track in her visions," she said. "Seven cycles she drew it. I decoded it. A wounded beast, feeding under the grove. We killed it because of her." She let the words sit. "She saw what none of you saw. Call that broken." The crowd shifted. The elder's mouth worked, but he had nothing. A child near the baskets pointed upward. A luminous six-winged moth drifted over the fire, trailing fine strands, and settled on the girl's shoulder. Its wings pulsed against her dark skin. The people had always named that creature a sign of true vision. Sylara watched the fear break. Slowly, the elders lowered their heads. One old seer set the amethyst skull of her predecessor at the girl's feet, the highest honor the camp could give. The girl's glow rose again, steady and bright. "Then we begin," Sylara said. The crowd accepted the rite. But acceptance meant the girl would now be fed to the soil, and Sylara had promised it aloud. She could no longer take it back.