Winter Flint's Arc

Chapter 6 of 18

Winter walked the perimeter of the chamber, running his hand along the walls. The lichen gave off just enough light to see by, but not enough to read the smaller carvings near the floor. He stopped at the sealed door and studied the claw marks again. They were fresh — weeks old at most. Whatever was inside had been quiet for centuries, and then something woke it up. The rot. It had to be. The rot was calling to it, or feeding it, or clearing a path. He turned back to the gathered clans and saw them watching the door like it might swing open at any moment. The bark-reader knelt beside the stone cairn and pointed to the topmost carving. "This one shows the seal breaking," she said. "And this one beneath it shows what happens after." Winter crouched beside her and looked at the image: roots torn apart, the forest floor split open, and something rising from below with limbs that bent in too many directions. The gnome representative leaned in and traced the rune at the bottom. "That's old tongue," he said. "It says 'do not wake what sleeps beneath the wood.'" Winter felt the weight of those words settle over him. They'd already woken it. The rot had been doing that for months, maybe years, and none of them had known. He stood and faced the clans. "We need to map every carving in this chamber," he said. "Every warning, every image, every mark. Then we bring that information to the full council and decide together how to stop this." The sprite elder stepped forward. "And if we can't stop it?" she asked. Winter looked at the sealed door, at the claw marks, at the cairn that wouldn't move. "Then we at least know what killed us," he said. The elf planted the staff in the ground. "I'll take the pillar," she said. The gnome representative nodded. "I'll start with the cairn." One by one, the gathered fae chose a section of the chamber and began to work. Winter watched them spread out, saw them working without argument or blame, and realized he'd finally done it. Not through speeches or evidence or threats, but by showing them something worse than each other. The bark-reader touched his arm. "You know this doesn't solve anything," she said quietly. "We still don't know how to stop the rot, or what happens if it reaches the door." Winter nodded. "But now they're looking at the same problem," he said. "That's enough for today." She studied his face for a moment, then returned to her work. Winter stood in the center of the chamber and listened to the sound of fae voices calling out descriptions of carvings, comparing translations, asking each other questions. It wasn't a council yet. But it was the beginning of one. And for the first time in two hundred years, Winter believed it might actually hold.