by Amber Argyle
Jolin wandered back into the room, her footsteps hushed. Bethel turned, as if she’d heard her anyway. “This—this you could wake up.”
Jolin stared at the two pieces. “What could I possibly accomplish with two pieces of amber?”
Bethel’s gaze turned inward. “You cannot make a sword from coal. You cannot build a house on sand.” She stretched out her hand and dropped the two pieces into Jolin’s palm. “This is meant to be one piece, and it will fight to stay together. Wake up that need, give it life.”
Jolin’s mother hesitated a moment, as if she would say more, then shook her head and left.
Lilette bent down and picked up the discarded backing. It was solid gold—it ought to be worth something. Perhaps she could have it melted down into coins. She wandered back into their shared room and pulled down her sack of jewels, carefully adding the broken gold.
“She broke your pendant?” The voice came from behind her.
Anger pricking at her throat, Lilette nodded.
“Why would she do that?” Jolin held the amber in the palm of her hand.
Lilette reached out and brushed her thumbs along the precise edge. She curled her hands away. “She said your work was important, that many things in the future would depend on you, and that one of you should stop being prideful.”
Jolin bristled. “Prideful? I’m not the prideful one.” But there was no heat in her words.
Lilette shot her a look. “I’ve seen rocks more willing to bend than you.”
Jolin wandered among her plants, her fingers skimming the edge of their leaves. “Wake up a need that’s already there.” Her hand stretched out, snapping a leaf from its branch.
Lilette followed her into the glass room and watched her pull a root free from the soil and lay it next to the leaf. “Wake it up. Strengthen its desire to be together.” The brightness had returned to her eyes, the focus sharp enough to pierce shark skin.
A smile crept up Lilette’s cheeks, but she was already late for class. She hustled to Political Studies, but her smile faded as her hand crept to the hollow of her throat. She felt empty without the familiar weight of her pendant around her neck. Empty and somehow free.
Chapter 27
I thought being strong meant never giving up. But it is really knowing when to fight and when to let go, and having the courage to follow through. ~Jolin
Lilette woke to a pair of hands shaking the dreams out of her. “It’s ready. I know it’s ready.”
She cracked her eyes open and squinted at the lamp light not far from her face.
Jolin’s expression was jubilant. “I’ve done it. I know I have. You have to sing, to wake it up.”
Lilette dug the pads of her fingers into her eyes. “What have you done?”
“Created the potion to wake it up! Now get moving!”
Jolin hauled her out of the bed that had been shoved into the other corner of Jolin’s room. When Lilette sat up, the hassacre slammed into her full force. She gasped in a breath as she stood, her underdress tangled around her thighs. Stumbling along after Jolin, she shook the dress to rights as best she could.
The glass garden was stuffy and hot again, but it smelled pleasant, somehow reminding Lilette of home. Doranna was there, looking exhausted and on edge. Sitting alone on a dirt-covered table was what remained of Lilette’s broken pendant. The amber was dry, but a steaming puddle had formed around it.
Lilette stared blankly at it, fighting the grogginess of the sleeping potion. “What am I supposed to do?”
Jolin planted both hands on Lilette’s back and pushed her forward. “I wondered the same thing after my mother left, but I just knew. How long to boil it and exactly what plants in exactly what quantity. I don’t know how, but I did. And so will you.”
Lilette picked up the pieces. They were hot in her hands and smelled of sweet resin. She shot a helpless glance at Doranna—surely she understood that this was madness. But the woman only stared back.
“It’s like we were guided,” Doranna said. “Like our minds didn’t know what our bodies were doing. They just did it.” Jolin shook her head in amazement, as if she still couldn’t believe what had happened.
She and Doranna watched Lilette, waiting. Lilette shifted her weight uncomfortably, and then she closed her eyes as she’d seen Bethel do. She tried listening to the stone. Nothing happened.
But then something did. An image came to her mind, of resin seeping from the trunk of an ancient tree, hardening under the sun and wind until it became stone. All of the four sisters were present in this little weight on Lilette’s palm. It had been one piece for thousands of years, until one sliver had been cut away. The pieces needed to be rejoined.
The comparison brought her sister to mind, and Lilette’s eyes pricked with tears as she sang.
Lost and lonely, you’ve gone astray,
A part of you has been cut away.
Until you find the other side,
Peace and belonging will never abide.
A song and vibration awaken your soul,
Heal what’s been broken and let it be whole.
Lilette knew she didn’t need to sing the song three times, just as she knew the two pieces of amber would now find each other. “It’s done.”
Jolin didn’t question her. She simply took the pieces of stone from her and set them on the table. She tapped the crescent with a fork. It slid across the table of its own accord and fit neatly against the other piece.
Jolin gasped with delight. She shook her fist triumphantly to the ceiling. “I did it! After all these years and all the doubters, I’ve finally done it!” She spun in a circle, the amber clenched to her chest. “They will have to make me Head of Earth now!”
“Well, you had some help,” Doranna muttered.
Jolin laughed and kissed her full on the mouth. Doranna’s eyes went wide in shock. Jolin whirled and zeroed in on Lilette. She tried to sidestep her friend, but Jolin’s exuberance was greater, and Lilette too was kissed. “My friends, this is just the beginning,” Jolin said. “Soon, kings will commission witches to sing them stone castles and ramparts. Soldiers will wish for our swords and bows. History shall never forget us and what we have done! We shall be written in the annuals of the keepers as the greatest, most advanced witches to have ever sung the songs.”
Lilette’s heart shrank away from such words. It was just too much power. Not wanting to ruin Jolin’s happiness, she curled her arms around herself and said, “I think I’ll go back to bed.”
Jolin was already piling more leaves and roots onto the table. “Fine. Yes. Doranna, find me more amber.”
Doranna rose slowly. “It’s the middle of the night. There is no amber on this island.”
Jolin paused before snatching a knife and slicing a root. “Ask my mother. She could find a diamond on the seashore.”
As she left, Doranna grumbled something about going to bed and how Jolin could dig her own amber mine.
Lilette climbed under the cold blankets and lay awake as the hassacre throbbed around her. Sash and the others were counter-singing. It was the only explanation for why the singing had gone on for as long as it had. Was Chen torturing the witches? Had he already taken them as his concubines?
Lilette watched the shadows slink away from the morning light as the bustle continued beyond her door. When she came out for breakfast, everything tasted like ash. Instead of going to class, she turned toward the cliffs. She was done waiting for Merlay and the keepers to save her sister. She was going to do something about it herself. And that meant she had to find Bethel.
***
Lilette followed the edge of the cliffs, her fingers skimming over the sculptures that seemed to be coming out of the rocks. Five stories high, they were mostly of women, but also some guardians. Their faces were so lifelike. She passed a group of four, their arms clasped and their mouths open in song. They were obviously part of a circle.
Next was a woman holding a perfect circle in her cupped hands. But no, t
he circle had a curved line through it. It looked like Lilette’s pendant. Her gaze traveled up, resting on the woman’s face. Lilette gasped and stepped back.
It was Jolin, her face suffused with joy. On one side of her was Doranna, on the other side was Lilette. Doranna looked determined and tired. Lilette found it harder to read the expression on her own face—sadness and trepidation, perhaps. It was a reflection of last night. But this sculpture was much older than that. Lichen grew along the folds of their clothes, and the sun and rain had bleached the raised parts, while the reliefs were darker.
Breathing hard, Lilette gaze traveled to the next grouping. A single woman with three faces. The closest one was looking back, her face buried in her weeping hands. The middle face gazed serenely over the island. The one on the right glared at a wounded figure cowering before her. In her hand, she held a knife that dripped into a pool of blood at her feet.
“You should stand back.”
Lilette had been so absorbed in studying the sculpture that the voice made her jump. A little farther on, Bethel stood flush with the cliffs, as if she was listening to secrets the stones whispered. Her black cloak made her nearly indistinguishable from the rocks.
Lilette scrambled over the scree toward her. “You knew about last night.” Her breath turned white in the cool morning air. “How could you have known?”
Bethel didn’t open her eyes. “The stone told me. Now go behind the largest tree. I can’t always predict where the scree will fall.”
Lilette knew what was coming. She was about to watch Bethel create the sculptures, see firsthand the source of the crashing sounds that regularly shattered the island’s routine.
Lilette found the tree Bethel meant and stumbled behind it. Tucked safely behind the buttress roots, she peered out and had the sense she was witnessing something magnificent—something no one in the history of the world had ever seen before.
Bethel spent a few more silent minutes pressed against the rock. “There.” She backed up behind a tree. Her eyes closed as if in concentration, she sang,
I reveal what lies hidden beneath,
Waiting too for the song of release.
Rocks and stone,
I’ve come to hone.
Keepers of old,
Show us our mold.
A thousand cracks filled the air like the sound of a hurricane, only louder and deeper. A fracture rent the rock, and a whole side of the cliff collapsed. Rocks tumbled down, dust billowing outward.
Lilette buried her face in the smooth bark of the tree, her fingers white as she pressed her fists into her ears to block out the deafening noise as the ground rumbled beneath her. When the world finally stilled, she peeked around the roots. The air was choked with dust that blocked her view. Coughing, she pulled her collar over her mouth and tried to take shallow breaths.
Bethel climbed over the rubble, her eyes glued to the cliff’s face. Stepping cautiously up beside her, Lilette sang softly for the damp wind. The air cleared, revealing the cliffs. Her eyes went as round as the jumble of stones at the cliffs’ base. The side had collapsed, exposing the lower half of a woman. Her feet dangled as if she floated in the air. But it was her clothing that made Lilette’s heart stutter in her chest. The image wore slippers and a tunic with loose trousers, the patterns shown by subtle depressions in the stone.
Bethel reached out and pulled Lilette next to her. “Stay close.”
Lilette sang again. More of the cliffs collapsed, revealing part of a face and releasing another cloud of dust. She impatiently sang the dust away.
Bethel’s voice joined hers. Though their songs were different, the melodies enhanced one another. More of the cliff collapsed, revealing a woman’s face. Lilette sat down hard, rocks bruising her backside.
It was her. The woman floating in the air was her. Her arms were thrown back, tears etching grooves down her cheeks. Her eyes looked up at the sky as if to ask how it could have come to this. How the world could ask so much. Lilette knew this was her future, and her soul ached with dread. She forgot all about Bethel until the older woman sat beside her.
“The stone told you this—that this is my future?” Lilette asked.
Bethel gestured to the sculpture of the three-faced woman. “It’s recorded in every history book ever written. At a civilization’s peak, the great and mighty destroy themselves.”
Lilette swallowed a sob. “No.”
Bethel’s eyes were sad. “The moment I touched the amber, I realized it was meant to save you. You must take a piece. Another you must give to a guardian—one who has proven himself true to the end. That way, he will be able to find you when no one else can.”
“I don’t know how you did this.” Lilette motioned to the cliffs. “Maybe you sang for the lichen, or have some way of aging the rock face like that.”
Bethel picked up a rock, weighing it in her hands. “Some things you have to learn for yourself. I thought you had.”
Lilette wanted to argue, but some deeply buried kernel of dread kept her silent.
“Why did you come here today, Lilette?”
She swallowed. “Because I’m done waiting for the keepers to free my sister. I’m going to do something about it, and I wanted your help.”
Bethel met her gaze. “You already have all the help you need.”
Lilette didn’t know how to respond.
“We all have our own burden to bear. Mine is to create this.” Bethel held out her hands to indicate the island.
“Haven—a school?”
Bethel laughed softly, a bitter sound, and tossed the rock away. “I’m not making a school. I’m making a last bastion of defense.”
Lilette looked back at the towering cliffs. “You’re carving history, so future generations will know what happened?”
Bethel studied the sculptures on the walls. “Stone lasts longer than vellum. I hope that someday, they will see the message I carved for them. We were once the strongest entity in the world. But someday we will be the weakest.”
The wars and destruction her mother had shown her. But Lilette had freed the other witches from Harshen. She’d prevented that disaster. Hadn’t she?
Bethel’s voice dropped. “I won’t be able to say goodbye to my daughter—she won’t go if I do—and I fear I shall never see her again. Will you tell her for me? Tell her I know she’ll do her part.”
Lilette opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Bethel’s hand rested on her back. “Take Doranna and Harberd with you. You’ll need the protection.”
“Where is it you think we’re going?”
Bethel sighed. “The stone didn’t tell me that.”
Lilette searched the one sculpture whose meaning was not immediately apparent—the woman with three faces. “Is that supposed to be a metaphor for the keepers?”
Bethel’s hand fell away from Lilette’s back “Yes. The one facing out is our present, standing serene and calm in our power. The one looking back is our past, grieving for what we shall lose even as our future destroys itself.”
“Bethel . . .” Lilette whispered.
“When the time comes, you must act,” the older woman said calmly. “We all must. Save those you can.”
Lilette winced. Bethel had used almost the exact same words her mother had.
Chapter 28
I needed Lilette, but I never stopped to consider that she might need me too. ~Jolin
“Lilette?”
A guardian stood a short distance away. Apart from the sailors who delivered supplies, men didn’t come onto the island.
Lilette scrambled to her feet, her stiff legs straining in protest. “Yes?”
The man approached them. He was a little older than Lilette, with a heart-stoppingly beautiful face and an adorable cowlick that made a patch of his hair stand at attention. “My name is Pescal. If you will please come with me.” His arm swept forward, indicating that she should go ahead of him.
Bethel looked up from her place on the hard rocks.
She looked so small and lonely. “You’ll remember to tell Jolin?”
Lilette studied the older woman. How must it have been to know dark things were coming, to prepare for them alone, while your peers called you a fool? “I believe you. And I’ll tell her.”
Bethel closed her eyes, tipped her face up to the sky, and smiled.
Taking a deep breath to steel herself, Lilette moved ahead of the guardian. It wasn’t long before they were among the witches again and the path widened enough for Pescal to walk beside her. Remembering her training to become empress, she threw her shoulders back. “I’m waiting for an explanation.”
Pescal’s green eyes studied her. “The Heads have called you back to Grove City. You are to bring your personal effects.”
Was it beginning already? “What for?”
Pescal hesitated. “I don’t know.”
Lilette closed her eyes. Hadn’t some part of her known this was coming? She took in her surroundings. The shorter trees, the witchlings in dresses of green rushing to and from classes, their books clutched to their chests.
She had not been happy here. She’d been lonely and frightened and full of guilt for leaving her sister behind. And she’d drowned out those feelings with the tincture Bethel had given her. All her life, Lilette had dreamed of coming here. In less than two weeks, she was relieved to be leaving.
She stepped through the open door of her tree to find Jolin dumping a whole sack of amber pieces into a potion. Doranna was scrambling to pack books and notes into straw-filled crates.
Jolin glanced up. “There’s a scroll for you on the table.” She indicated it with a jerk of her head.
In a daze, Lilette went to the table and picked it up. On the thick, textured vellum was an embossed seal of a crescent moon in dark green wax. She broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. She’d been promoted from a witchling to an apprentice. “Did you know what this was?” she asked Jolin.
Her friend didn’t look up. “Since witchlings aren’t allowed to leave Haven unless they’re being kicked out, I imagine you’ve been advanced to an apprentice.”