Chapter 42: Answers

Chapter 42: Answers
"Tell me!"

I didn't control my voice.

The word came out of my throat differently.

The statue lit up the instant I shouted those two words. Not just its eyes—the entire statue blazed to life. Light spread outward from the statue's center, covering its entire surface, then continued beyond, flooding the entire hall. The moonlight became almost invisible beneath that radiance.

My eyes widened, not knowing what I had done.

Then my consciousness suddenly severed.

I saw Aethon.

I saw Aethon before it had humans.

The basalt plateau rose from the ground under some force I couldn't name. Not volcanic, not seismic—something older, something purer. After the plateau rose, a group of beings appeared there.

These beings glowed with light throughout their bodies, their forms indistinct and shifting.

They built upon the plateau. Their method of building was not what I understood as building. Their very presence caused the stone to reshape itself. Every structure grew from the places they passed.

I saw Aethon's first humans.

Those humans stood below the plateau. They saw the beings above. They wanted to come up.

These beings let them ascend.

The image drew closer, and I saw their forms resembling the statues in the city.

They were elves, and here they welcomed humanity.

The elves built stairs for those humans, stairs that led from below the plateau to above. Those steps were carved from single blocks of stone, each section precisely calibrated to human stride.

After the humans ascended, the elves taught them the art of stone carving. Taught them the logic of the entire city's construction. Taught them language. Taught them that restrained way of speaking.

I saw the elves' departure.

That image contained a sorrow I had never felt before.

On the day before the elves left, all of them gathered in the city's central square. The tallest one stood at the front. The other elves formed a circle around them.

The tallest elf raised their hand.

Every elven statue throughout the city was created in that moment. They were not carved. They were summoned directly from the stone by the elves. Each statue was a trace left behind by an elf on the day of their departure.

That's why the statues had no faces, or why their faces were all veiled.

They didn't want to show their true appearance. Or rather, the elves never had faces to begin with.

But I didn't see where they went, or how they went.

Then I saw today.

I saw myself standing before the statue.

I saw the instant I shouted those two words.

Those two words mobilized some power I didn't know I possessed. That power emerged from within me and covered the statue. The last trace of pure elven magic in the statue was activated by those two words.

The entire statue released all the content it had preserved in that instant.

That content was Aethon's history. The elves' departure. The complete knowledge of the Truthspeaker statue itself.

All of that content entered my consciousness.

My consciousness returned.

I knelt on the stone slabs before the statue.

My breathing was heavy. My forehead was covered in sweat. Every new wound and old injury on my body throbbed with dull pain.

I looked at the statue again. The color of the two hollows where its eyes should be had changed, from that deep color to the same color as the stone. The faint light within it had also vanished.

This time the statue was completely silent.

But what I had seen—none of it answered any of my questions. I couldn't understand why it had shown me these things.

As I struggled to my feet, footsteps echoed from the corridor. I had no time to hide, could only position myself with my back to the statue, facing the corridor.

The footsteps approached, sounding like only one person. I stood frozen, thinking about what excuse I should use if I were arrested.

I squinted, observing the approaching figure carefully, and realized it was the old priest.

He walked slowly into the hall, no soldiers following behind him. His left hand still held that small flask. He looked at the statue first, then stopped.

His gaze fell on me.

"You."

He said.

After that word, he paused.

"You are."

He paused again.

"The king's daughter. The princess from the prophecy."

I didn't answer immediately, surprised that he had recognized me, and puzzled by why he wasn't calling for someone to seize the intruder.

He looked at me and actually raised his flask to take a drink.

"I've been a priest in Aethon for forty years," he said. "I've guarded this statue longer than you've been alive. I've never seen it light up during my lifetime."

"I saw the energy it drew from you," he said. "That kind of energy has only one source."

"The king's daughter," he said, speaking the phrase for the third time. "The part about you in our prophecy here."

"There are other prophecies?" I said.

"You don't know."

"No."

He looked at me and found a nearby chair to sit in. The smell of alcohol wafted faintly toward me from him, and I wondered if he was drunk and talking nonsense. I slowly shifted my feet, wanting to slip away while he was immobile and mentally unclear.

"That prophecy that brought you here," he said. "The king's daughter will be the end of the Rift."

"That prophecy didn't come from outside."

"It went out from here."

My footsteps stopped.

"From here?"

"Yes. Twenty years ago, from a man who lived in the western district of this city."

"Who was that man?" I said.

"He called himself the Great Prophet," he said.

More footsteps came from the corridor.

More than one pair.

The old priest's expression changed immediately. He carefully put away his flask and glanced toward the corridor. Then he quickly turned back to look at me.

"Guards," he said. "They saw the light. They're coming from the main entrance."

He fumbled in his robe pocket and pulled out a key.

"Go back along the corridor you came from," he said. "Exit through the north gate and walk west two streets. There's an old market there. Behind the market is a drainage culvert that leads outside the city."

He pressed the key into my hand.

"The culvert entrance is locked," he said. "This key will open it."

"Why help me?" I said.

"I've guarded this statue for forty years," he said. "What I've been waiting for is for it to light up again. I've waited, and now I've seen it."

The footsteps from the corridor grew closer.

The old priest turned and walked toward the corridor.

"Go," he said, without looking back. "I'll hold them off."

I allowed myself one last look at the statue.

It stood quietly before me. The veil on its face caught the moonlight. Its hands held the scales and scroll. The two hollows where its eyes should be were empty.

I turned and ran through that spiral corridor.

The small path outside was deserted.

I ran west along the path for a stretch, then turned into an alley off the main street. The old priest hadn't lied to me—there were no pursuers behind me.

I let myself stop in the alley for a moment to catch my breath.

My mind now held two things. One was all the content the Truthspeaker statue had shown me. The other was what the old priest had told me in that last second about the "Great Prophet."

I tried to organize the priority of these two things. Now wasn't the time to leave the city—I needed to find...

Suddenly, a hand covered my mouth from behind, the force preventing me from making a sound. His other hand grabbed my wrist, dragging my entire body toward the shadows in a side alley.

My instinct told me I'd encountered a robber or rapist. My right hand broke free, reaching for the sword at my waist. My feet tried to steady myself on the ground, preparing to turn.

That hand released me before my sword cleared its sheath, and its owner moved in front of me.

I recognized his cloak—it was the hooded man who had helped me at the city gate.

He stood before me in the moonlight, his hood not pulled as low this time.

I saw his face.

It was Rendell.