Zia Sunroot's Arc

Chapter 16 of 17

The coyote leads them around a low ridge, and the land opens. Zia stops at the edge. In a hollow below sits a canvas tent with wooden poles, the awning pinned wide to the wind. No one stands outside. The flap hangs open like a held breath. Teo's lodestone stick points straight at it. Zia crouches in the sand. She studies what the guide has set in plain view. A stack of stones rises near the tent, wrapped in a faded cloth of purple, blue, and orange. She has seen that knot before, in Jarek's drawings. So the guide knew him. Knew him well enough to keep his marker standing. In front of the tent, on a flat stone, sits a clay jug with a cork stopper. Nothing else. No weapon. No sign. Just water, offered. Zia understands the shape of it. A keeper greets a keeper with water first. "He wants us to come in," Teo says. "Or he wants us to drink and turn back." Zia watches the tent flap move. "Either way, he's telling us who he is before he shows his face." Water in the desert is a vow. Whoever waits inside is binding himself to it. A small dust cloud lifts between them and the tent, then settles. The coyote trots down and lies beside the jug. It knows this place. Zia's hand tightens on her pack. She thinks of the dryad tending her pool, the tortoise watching her boundary. She did not come this far to stand on a ridge. "We drink," she says. "Then we go in." Teo nods. They walk down together. Zia pulls the cork. The water is cool and tastes of clay. She sets the jug back exactly as she found it. The tent flap lifts in the wind, and she steps toward it, no longer walking blind.