Zia Sunroot's Arc

Chapter 9 of 17

Zia climbs back over the ridge before she has settled her thoughts. The bright tent is no longer empty. A figure crouches beside a fresh pile of sun-bleached logs, stacking them with care. A bedroll sits unrolled in the shade. They have come back ahead of her, and she has not yet decided what to say about the cracked bowl of earth behind her. She slows at the chime marker and presses one hand to the leather journal tucked under her arm. Its pages hold her own small maps, her counts of the spring, the dates the heron walked the water. The truth of the crater wants to spill out of her. The truth is also a weight she has carried alone for one afternoon only. The stranger stands. In their hands is a jagged stone the size of a melon, dark metal veined with bright cracks that glow even in daylight. They hold it out toward her without a word. She knows at once where it came from. They have been to the crater too. They have already seen. Zia lets the journal fall to her side. There is nothing left to guard. She steps into the camp and sits across the woodpile from them. "It was an oasis once," she says. "I think we are meant to keep it from happening again." The stranger sets the shard between them like a third presence. They nod, slow and certain. The decision is made. She has spoken first, and the world did not end.