Symphira Starweaver's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The whole scale drummed strong in Symphira's palm, and the name inside it pulled her like a hook behind the ribs. She had spoken names over scales before, in forests and on open ground. But this pull felt wrong for those places. It dragged sideways, past the edge of the sky, toward some other world. She turned on the dragon's broad back, searching. The current wanted her to cross to where it led. She had no door to reach it. "You feel it too," she said. Through the thread her dragon answered, not in words but in a steady lean toward the horizon. Its golden skin flickered with shifting color, and its head swung the same way the scale pulled. The two of them agreed. The naming had to happen there, beyond this world. She did not know how to get beyond this world. Symphira closed her eyes and followed the pull, not with her feet but with her mind. It bent down, toward a peak below them. She opened her eyes and saw it: a pale building crowning a lone mountaintop. Its dome curved like cupped hands. Tall windows glowed with soft light from within. The scale's pull aimed straight at its heart. "Down," she told the dragon. It folded its wings and dropped. They landed on the stone steps that ringed the tower. Symphira slid off and climbed to a narrow door. She pushed it open. Inside, the air hummed. One great window filled the far wall, and a point of light hung at its center, bright as a trapped star. The pull in her chest yanked toward that light. This was the crossing. She stepped closer. The light widened as she neared, spreading until the window was no longer glass but an opening. Through it she saw not the valley behind the tower but a strange sky, dark and streaked with gold. The pull nearly lifted her off her feet. Her dragon pressed its head through the doorway behind her, filling the room, its eyes fixed on the far sky. "That's the way," Symphira said. She reached into the light. Her fingers passed through cold air into warm. The window was a gate, and it was open. But she could not pass. The gate held room for one slender Faye, no more. Her dragon could never fit through it. Symphira drew her hand back. The scale drummed harder, angry at the wait. She had found the crossing. The naming could only wake on the far side. Yet the one who carried the fire, the one whose name she meant to speak, could not follow her through. She stood at the open gate, holding the strong scale, and understood the new trap. She had a door at last. It would let her through alone, and leave her dragon behind.