>>6209164Inside, Carnaval walks on the stony corridors, the darkness lighted by the glow of her crystal wing, masonry relief cast out in crimson. She passes through the first and the second sanctum, and then she approaches the inner room — she flaps her wings and, with another wince as her wound aches — she crosses over the steaming pools leading to the metal sphere, where sunlight is so intense even her crimson blood looks pale.
There, she enters, and she is alone — and alone no more.
Panting, she crouches on the floor, opening her right hand to reveal the burn-out remains of what used to be a white feather. Once taken out of the engine, it had burst into a pillar of white flame, like she was holding a mile-long spear, bright enough to rival one of the Eyes of the Sun.
She has waited for the dawn while holding her own fragment of it, until Ansàrra’s sunrise found her floating over the graveyard of a ship, surrounded by flotsam and corpses bloated by the sea, already a feast for the bravest of fish.
Then she has arrived here.
She sets the remains of her feather on the floor and it turns into fine black powder, which begins to thrum and shift, like following a hidden vibration — it shapes into a circle with three lines coming from the upper half.
Carnaval lets out a soft moan as the flesh around her wound starts to knit itself back into shape, the edges of her wound closing—
“No,” she pleads, holding up her charred hand. It burns — it pulsates in sheer waves of pain, but the Presence there with her in the room stops. “Do not waste your mercy on me.”
A moment of hesitation — Carnaval purses her lips.
“Please. Give your strength to those in need of it.”
And the Sun-Birther heeds her plight.
The light inside the metal chamber dims — dies. Left alone in the darkness, Carnaval breathes out softly, carrying her pain like the finest shawl. She waits — waits, with the crinkly echoes of her wings as her only company, until she is absolutely certain that the Sun-Birther’s attention is somewhere else, and She has respected her desires.
Then, biting her lip, she reaches out with her black finger to trace a new sign from the powder — two interlaced squares.
The eight-pointed star flashes with faint silvery light — Carnaval glances as it bathes her body, the inner chamber, and the Stilladìa’s voice comes out of it, for her ears only.
“You reek of the hunt.”
[cont.]
