Page 52 of Still the Sun

“No, not then.” I turn toward him, studying his face like I should know it better. I should know it better, shouldn’t I? “Before. On the first floor. I was shouting at you.”

His eyebrows draw close. “I don’t—”

“I told you to ‘kiss my mortal ass.’” I lick my lips. “You apologized to me, there.” I point to the protrusion. “But ... I can’t remember what we were fighting about.”

His brows release like a bowstring snapped. He leans toward me, then takes a step back. “Nophe ... what did you see?”

“I just told you what I saw.”

His countenance crinkles in on itself, like he’s going to scream, or cry, or ...

My heart misses a beat. He is a man lost in the desert without water, a flower plucked of petals, a machine without a motor, dripping oil in a slow, rusting death.

Irritation forgotten, I reach for him. Touch his elbow. “Heartwood ... what? Whathappenedto me? To you?”

But he pulls away, as though I’m in a hangman’s noose and he’s the one who sentenced me.

“Heartwood!”

“Go, please.” Gravel fills his voice. “Go home.”

My chest hurts. Ithurts, and I’m suffocating beneath hundreds of meters of sand. “But the sun—”

“It doesn’t matter.” He starts back for the tower. “Come back in another cycle, Pelnophe. But please,please, leave.”

The despondency of his request makes it impossible to refuse. Answers are within reach, but I can’t deny him. Not this time.

One of the wells has a collapsing wall, and I need to repair it. Yet for some reason, I find myself locked in my house, staring at my piecemeal light machine.

Is this something I’m supposed to remember? It doesn’t speak to me the way the machines at the tower do, but ...

But I have no ending for that thought. No direction.

This orb has a fuel compartment, unlike the tower machine.Machine, singular. But what in Ruin’s hell am I supposed to power it with?

I rack my brain until my head’s ready to burst. Abandoning my work, I get my digging equipment out of the shed and trek out to the farm. It’s late mist, the fog thinning by the time I reach my destination. Before heading down, I set up a pulley system and a harness so I don’t get stuck. I remove about half the fallen rubble before shoring up the sides of the well—a filthy job, but someone’s got to do it. Then I dig out the rest of the rubble. At least it’s not the well someone urinated in. The water’s dirty, but it’s water, and plants don’t care about dirt. Good enough for now.

The next mist has fallen by the time I finish, my hands and knees scratched up. I begin marching home, tired and cranky. My new normal, apparently. But I’d rather be tired and cranky than desperate and weepy. I think of standing in Heartwood’s doorway, tearing and scared.Madness.I’m still not entirely sure that’s not what this is.

Gods.No mortal has markings like those. I wonder if Moseus has something similar, but the idea of asking makes me queasy. I don’t know why—Moseus has always been the more reasonable of the pair. But ...

He’s never in the visions,I think, ignoring a chill creeping up my arm.Why is it always Heartwood?

Glimmers like small candles light the road ahead of me. Fresh emilies, glowing in clusters, unhindered by the mist. I watch them until I’m about to pass, then stop.

Glowing. Light. If that’s not power ...

Dropping my load, I pull out my shovel and stab it into the packed earth, right next to a pink emily. The roots are strong and deep. I dig down about two and a half decimeters before taking Arthen’s knife and slicing through the thick taproot. The glimmer lingers in the center of the flower, but noticeably dimmer. I dig up two more, then carry the haul back to my house.

I carefully pull apart one of the flowers, trying to understand its components, but plants and machines are very different creatures. There’s no pollen that I can detect, no residue left on my fingers. I grind a few broad petals in a bowl to make a paste, which I’ve done before for paint, but I don’t discover anything new.

I turn to the roots. We usually shred them and spin them into thread, and they hold well. My shirt is made of emily fibers. But my mind, working overtime, now sees them in a new light. Not as threads, but as wires.

Opening up the sphere of my light machine, I try segmenting part of the root and attaching it to the wires. Nothing happens, even when I close the orb. Reopening it, I tinker with the pieces, noticing aclickwhen I turn the base of the wires. Connect them, and—

The orb flickers and illuminates, a brilliant white pouring from the glass. I gasp, eyes watering as I stare directly into it.

Serpent save me, it works. But why? What is this for?

---