Page 77 of Still the Sun

“Not this.” I squeeze his arm before pushing past him, grabbing the hem of his shirt to pull him with me. “This is different. The other was a copy.”

My legs protest every step of that winding staircase, but my heart pumps hard, enticing them forward. Machine Two remains pulled away from the wall. I wipe perspiration from my eyes and race to it, crouching again before that door. A new set of hurried footsteps sounds on the stairs; Moseus has overheard the commotion and come to see. I’m so focused I hardly think twice about him. This is it. I feel it in my bones, in that hollow chasm punched through my core.

With the tower keepers looking on, I press Entisa’s pendant into the subtle indentation of the wall.

A sudden hiss of air from the hairline cracks startles me. I whip my hands back, but the pendant sticks to the stone like it’s been suctioned there. The stone door pushes outward. A mechanism behind it groans as it slides the heavy stone to the right, revealing a doorway one meter tall and one meter wide. Soft pink light radiates from within.

A laugh escapes me. Heartwood whispers my name like a prayer, and Moseus exclaims something in a language I don’t recognize. I crawl through. The revealed chamber is small, just large enough for two adults to stand side by side. A tall, rose-colored crystal takes up the rest.

I gape at it. It’s as tall as I am, narrow at the base and flowering out at the top, cut in clean, symmetrical lines. Translucent, dull, quiet. I press a hand to its surface. Room temperature.

Heartwood remembers my request not to leave me alone with Moseus and enters before the older man. His eyes and mouth are round, his movements reverent. “Is that ...?”

Swallowing against a dry throat, I pull my hand away. “It ... it looks like the wall.”

Just like the wall. The great amaranthine wall that spans as far as the eye can see, an insurmountable construct without beginning or purpose, other than to separate two peoples who never knew one another.

“It is.” Heartwood’s breath stirs my hair. “This is amaranthine.” He, too, presses a hand to it, closes his eyes, and says something in his godly tongue—words far more lyrical than whatever vernacular Moseus had uttered. I recognize a word that means an expression of relief or wonder, but I don’t catch the rest.

When had Heartwood taught me that word?

Moseus elbows his way in, and I press back toward the door, not wanting to touch him. He stares at the crystal, cheeks sucked tight to his teeth.

“But how did they get amaranthine for power?” Heartwood asks.

“Maybe it was mined?” I squat. “Look.”

There are raised conduits stemming from the base of the crystal, matching the stone of the walls and floor around it, jutting off instraight lines and right angles into the surrounding walls, disappearing where we can’t reach. But they go to the other machines. I’m sure of it.

Keeping a wary eye on Moseus’s stiff back, I say, “I’ll have to study it. Understand how it works. It might react to emilies.”

Heartwood turns to me. “Emilies?”

“The flowers that grow here. I haven’t had the opportunity to investigate them, but they function in a circuit. They provide power, for machines built to take it.” I raise empty hands. “Perhaps this will react to them. It’s worth a shot. I have some here, from the cording I made, but they’re old, and ... I don’t think they’ll be enough.”

Heartwood says, “I don’t think—”

“Yes.” Moseus’s response is breathy but firm. “Yes, that might work. Can you get more now, Pell?”

Heartwood shifts between the crystal and me. “If we could—”

“No, it’s incomplete.” Sweat beads on Moseus’s brow. “It needs to be repaired. The emilies are a good idea.”

Heartwood’s uncertain eyes flick between Moseus and me. “Then let me. Pell needs to rest.”

“I can do it.” I touch his hip reassuringly where Moseus can’t see, though Moseus’s attention remains locked on the crystal. I could strip naked and sing, and he wouldn’t notice. Still, I lower my voice so only Heartwood can hear me. “I couldn’t sleep now if I tried.” I chew on the inside of my lip. “Heartwood, Ether is so close. We’reso close.”

His countenance warms. The pad of his thumb brushes my jaw, but he lowers it, glancing at Moseus. “I’ll help you.”

“We’ll both help.” Moseus finally steps back from the crystal—my cue to slide out the door to avoid being crushed by bodies. “We don’t know how many emilies it will take. But first, Heartwood, I need your assistance upstairs.”

“I passed a few clusters of them on my way,” I offer as Heartwood, followed by Moseus, climbs out of the hidden room. “One had over a dozen.”

Moseus nods, his dark eyes distracted. “We may need hundreds. Fresh, not the corpses you left here.”

“We can get hundreds,” I assure him. And then the door will open, and Moseus will leave, and my dream will be just a dream and nothing more. And Heartwood—

I can’t think about Heartwood yet. I can’t let myself crack when we’re so close.

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