Winter Flint's Arc

Chapter 12 of 18

They tied Morgatha to a stone post near the braced door. Winter set the relics behind him and faced the council. Rope bit her wrists. She did not flinch. She watched the elders gather like someone reading a page she had already written. Winter spoke first. He kept it short. "She woke it. She stays bound until we know what she heard down there." The hill gnome elder grunted agreement. The eastern sprite elder folded her arms. For one breath, Winter believed the council would hold. Then Morgatha lifted her chin. Her voice was even, almost bored. "Ask him why he buried my work. He never said. He never will." The hill gnome elder turned his head slowly toward Winter. The sprite elder did the same. Winter felt the room tilt. Esmerelda's pencil stopped moving on her page. Madrigal's ghost drifted closer, watching, silent. Thyrsus, leaning on a timber brace, exhaled through his nose like a man who had seen a fire catch wrong. "Winter." The hill elder's voice was flat. "Is that true?" The sprite elder added, quieter, "You buried someone's work without a word?" Winter opened his mouth. He had no short answer. The truth was older than this tunnel and uglier than he wanted it. Both elders stepped back from him, just one pace, but the council split along that pace like a cracked stone. Morgatha said nothing more. She did not need to. Winter looked at the two elders he had just lost, at the relics behind him, at the door still pushing inward in the dark. The council was bound together by fear, not trust. And now even the fear was not enough.