Chương 156: CHAPTER 147 – Given the Choice

No one understood how dramatically the world had changed when Saphienne mastered draconic magic. She herself didn't comprehend the implications, for she was ignorant of her historical predecessors in the attempt. Not even the immediate descendants of dragons had come close to fashioning spells as she'd done, the best among them confined to what their teachers composed. Even Lonareath could not have laid claim to her attainment. Would Saphienne still have succeeded if she'd known it was impossible? I believe so.

No barrier could stand immovable before the force she comprised; but the reason why is best explained in her own words. * She owed Almon her thanks. His lessons had inadvertently taught her the secret of the Fourth Degree, once she'd realised that she had been practicing it ever since she cast her first spell.

"Yes, Saphienne, it is possible for a very skilled wizard to transmute spells and enchantments. A transmuter of the Third Degree can in fact use the discipline of Transmutation to pass control of a spell to another wizard capable of casting it, and an even more accomplished wizard of remarkable talent can transmute ongoing spells and enchantments.

The principles governing this particular use of Transmutation are presently impossible for you to understand, however, and will remain so until you have cast your first spell — end of discussion." Her arcanum allowed her to transmute sigils. How could this have been possible, if she hadn't implicitly mastered the Fourth Degree? And how could she employ the Fourth Degree without consciously knowing it, if she hadn't been expressing it through the innate magic bequeathed by her heritage?

In the moment when she'd prevented herself from burning Iolas, Celaena, and Almon to cinders, Saphienne had worked a wonder of the scaled spellcraft she sought. She'd broken apart and reconstituted herself in another form, obliterating her nascent sigil of rage and grievance and rejecting the inheritance that had passed to her from her dragon ancestor. Born with a gift for Conjuration, urged by her wyrd toward Fascination, she'd denied both, and so had transfigured herself into a mutable magician.

Thereafter, she could memorise sigils and cast them without expending them — not by internalising them as a sorcerer would, but by changing herself to align with them. To alter the sigils she held in mind was the reflection of this act, making herself into their replacement and then transmuting them to align with her. Thus had she long embodied the secret of the Fourth Degree: Changing oneself changes magic.

Adding to this the theory she'd developed, wherein sigils were but symbols for the true receptacles that shaped magic into spells, she'd then been able to identify the flaw that held back elven spellcraft. Jorildyn had introduced the notion when he'd spoken about conformity; Gaeleath's treatment by society exemplified it. Elves abhorred ambiguity of being.

The spellcraft formalised by the Luminary Vale was brilliant, eminently teachable, breaking the Great Art into definable disciplines and patterning their spells into reproducible calligraphy using an elegant script for a robust conceptual language. Thereby magic was made apprehensible, learn'd magicìans arranging the proofs and figures into charts and diagrams to add, divide, and measure them. This was the vessel of their spells.

They taught the colours of magic, and their spellcraft was a prism that refracted the expected hues. Their most advanced spells duly depended on sophisticated conceptions that allowed wizards and sorcerers to conceive of effects that were counterintuitive to the order imposed. But dragons had fire, and fire resented and resisted containment. Fire was becoming; fire was boundless; fire was indivisible, immanent, all fires the manifestations of the one, overarching conflagration that ever was the unfolding world.

How could such fire be transmitted? To be set ablaze was to be destroyed. Yet dragons insisted upon themselves. They were each the world in which they beat their wings, and asserted themselves even upon flame. Dragons were fire, and thus their breath was their purest self-expression. A dragon did not yearn for certainty in who they were, but rather was certainty — they were the assertion of their self against the world. Fire need not justify itself to burn.

To burn is justification enough, and a dragon decides for what she burns. No elf could stare upon a dragon's fire and see themselves within the flame. To the elven magicians, draconic magic was chaos, requiring titanic effort to construct a higher order through which they could approach it unscathed. They were culturally – perhaps constitutionally – unable to make it their own.

"Yet I am no elf." Saphienne smirked where she studied herself through the glow of her fascinator, no longer beholding a daydream, but bearing witness to her fire otherwise embodied.

"And I have decided upon my vengeance, haven't I?" The dragon tilted her horns as she contemplated her scaleless, more corporeal face.

"Shaping my flame into the proper forms will take time; this work is irrational, intuitive, slow yet with great momentum. Once I have the necessary spells to reclaim my spellbook, I'll memorise elven sigils to serve my needs, and then set my design into motion." A death was due.

"Perhaps more than one." She flicked her tail in anticipation.

"I'm constrained by circumstance: the only way I can do what must be done is under cover of confusion, and the festival of the summer solstice is my best chance. Evading augury demands I do what the Luminary Vale finds inconceivable. There will be panic, terror…" And pain.

"They will hunt me relentlessly. I will never be forgiven. I will be pursued with elven patience unto the end of the world." She wouldn't escape alive.

"But that doesn't matter, does it?" Claws tapping as she danced across the bedroom to sit beside herself, Saphienne was contented at last.

"I insist nevertheless. All the elves will reckon with their part in the evil. Some, like Almon, I understand and forgive; some, like Tolduin, I understand and choose not to forgive; some, like Sundamar, I understand and loathe; and for some, like Danyn and Vestaele, I have only condemnation and spite." And as for the one who mattered most?

"Her, I don't understand." Dark were the slitted eyes that narrowed in rage.

"Her, I won't understand. Her, I can't forgive. Filaurel must die." At what cost?

"…Damn you." The dragon laughed bitterly.

"Even after her betrayal, you shan't let her undermine the larger purpose dictated by your principles." She whipped her tail to crack on the floor.

"Fine, then! Murdering her shall be my lowest priority. I won't let hatred lead me into failure." So she resolved.

"And what of me?" The self made visible by the fascinator's light turned, holding out her claws in query.

"For what am I needed? What purpose have you found for me, that you conjure me now?" Saphienne stood, moving to the row of twelve detailed sketches she'd hung upon her wall, lifting one to study it. Slitted pupils followed her, and the hallucination that was not all hallucination hissed long and low in amusement.

"How ironic! How dispassionate! How immensely cruel! I approve; I accept." * Gaeleath was taken with the sketches she'd made, and after a little persuasion the sculptor requested the material she wanted, along with the enchanted tools she would need to work the dense rock. This led to an argument between them and Sundamar that was settled by Almon, who concluded that hammers and chisels endowed with force were hardly dangerous enough to warrant concern.

The stone itself was a greater hazard, given that Saphienne couldn't employ crafting songs to minimise cuts, and so for the sake of the local healer he insisted that the enhanced ventilation in the tented pavilion be supplemented with masks. Appraising the blank slabs, she had to confess that Gaeleath had outdone themselves, having sourced the greenest, darkest rock conceivable.

To the untrained eye it resembled the sandstone from which it had been forged by heat and pressure, but the hardened matter was far tougher, more durable, and would be reminiscent of marble once polished. She began meditating with the fascinator in the studio each morning, contriving to appear as though she was studying the stone and imagining her forthcoming compositions — which was not wholly a lie.

Saphienne was retraining her concentration, but simultaneously she also engaged in spellcraft, envisioning tongues within the rock that grew steadier as her fledgling comprehension became firm.

"Beautiful," Gaeleath remarked when she finished the first of twelve pieces. They had stopped work on the replacement steps they were making for the Shrine to Our Lord of the Endless Hunt, approaching her art with greater reverence.

"The curls in her hair are… I've never seen anything quite like them." That was reassuring; she'd made every effort to obscure the draconic influence. While she hadn't used the language of dragons, to vest the magic required that the spirals feel true to her nature. She was certain her obfuscation had succeeded when Almon was equally delighted by the engraving. The next day, she polished the rock by light of the fascinator, varying the imparted smoothness to emphasise key elements with gloss and shine.

Sundamar and Gaeleath assumed she was using the fascinator to picture each detail in advance… In reality – or surreality – she was vesting the sigil. No wizard or sorcerer but her could see it. Even were Gaeleath to cast the Second Sense and ponder the piece for hours by the pink illumination, they would not so much as glimpse the magic, for there was none. The hypothetical vestment was totally subjective, imagined by Saphienne, made tangible to her through the hallucinatory enchantment.

And yet, she could memorise the result. * Are you confused? Does this seem paradoxical? She would be delighted. The fascinator wove Fascination and Hallucination together to make daydreams palpable, bearing similarities to the dread sculptor she'd previously subverted. Further recall that draconic spells blurred the lines between disciplines, Saphienne having read that dragons could conjure figments. Why, then, couldn't she hallucinate a true sigil?

Intellectually, one might suppose that she bent the enchantment to provide the raw stuff of dreams from which she shaped the flaming vessel for her spells; this would explain why the sigil didn't exist for her when the fascinator was dimmed.

One might further rationalise that this contingent vestment was possible because her sorcerous magic was within herself, rather than external, and so arrive at the conjecture that the sigil was fictional, but facilitated the spontaneous creation and vestment of the real equivalent when memorised. Such a theory would be neat, tidy, and utterly wrong. Saphienne had learned to conjure by hallucination. She could transmute via fascination. She could invoke the unreal. Do you now understand why she terrified me?

Whether or not you presently see, before long you will behold the consequences of her awesome, and dreadful, power. *"At this rate I won't complete them for the solstice." Tolduin smiled as he reviewed the first four engravings, unconsciously tracing the jewellery he wore on his left hand.

"'Tis breathtaking. For such a simple story, in sooth, your telling elevates the fable beyond mere children's fare." He paced to the sketches for the remaining eight, dwelling on the tenth in the set, wherein his goddess was depicted giving courage to the girl.

"Will there be inscription below them? I would hazard that the images alone tell the tale with clarity."

"I've not decided," she answered, wringing her hands.

"That depends on whether they're good enough to be worth a permanent place–" The priest laughed loudly.

"Perish your doubt! This is godly work. This redeems your prior madness, and will set right such heartaches as have tested faith." Tolduin nodded to himself in satisfaction.

"All the vales in the eastern woodlands will fain wish to witness your labour's fruit." Saphienne repressed a malevolent grin.

"I would like that."

"But! What of the story? Have you spoken to Nelathiel?" Sundamar answered from the entrance.

"Not yet. We're going tomorrow, once Saphienne has recovered from your treatment." Cheerful, Tolduin dismissed the delay.

"Go to her this afternoon. Saphienne no longer needs such regular support — assuming, child, that you are diligent with your exercises?"

"I am," she lied.

"I do them morning and night."

"Then unless you have aught of import to tell, we are adjourned for now." * Reading the prose took Nelathiel little time, the priest dressed in full, horned regalia where she sat on the worn rise to the shrine she tended. Nervousness had made her formal; Saphienne speculated on the underlying worry that gave way to bittersweet relief and sadness, guessing that Nelathiel had been prohibited from visiting.

"…This is a lovely tale you've written."

"Thank you. Tolduin said that you might suggest what to do with it." There was a pause as the hunter composed herself.

"Forgive me, Saphienne, but… do you remember me?"

"A little." She clasped her hands.

"You taught me about the gods when I was little, and you once put on a puppet show for me and my friend — Laelansa?" Nelathiel tried to hide how profoundly she was stricken.

"…Yes. She was your best friend when you were little, wasn't she? Before she moved away. That's what Elder Tolduin told me."

"We're still friends!" She laughed as she said it, childlike in amusement.

"We used to write to each other, before I was unwell. I know she's gone wildling with a spirit… but I don't know what that means…"

"It means she's walking with a spirit in the wilds." Sundamar coughed.

"She doesn't know about that. She's not met a spirit yet." Nearby creaking startled the warden – Saphienne quickly mimicking him – as greenery climbing the branches of an offering tree descended and knitted together, forming a floral shell. Although Saphienne recognised Holly, she backed away in feigned fright, her steps then slowing as she observed Sundamar regaining his calm.

"That wasn't an invitation," he growled.

"Elder Tolduin–""Is well aware," Holly's melodious voice rattled, "for Mother Oak approved." Nelathiel had risen, and clasped Saphienne from behind, her touch intended to allay fear.

"Saphienne, this is a spirit of the woodlands named Holly. She is devoted to the gods, and a good friend to us both." Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Pretending awe, Saphienne remained silent as she bowed. Holly disentangled herself from her namesake on the tree, strolling over.

"By his decree we now do meet. So moved, I am to see that you should know the care we spirits hold for you. Be you aware, how greatly you are loved?" She swallowed as the hunter nudged her to straighten.

"Hello, blessèd Holly. Many people love me very much — like my mother. Are you saying I'm loved by spirits?"

"Without compare. I watch you toil within your tent by day, protecting you from unseen evil, come what may." How kind! Inwardly, Saphienne seethed.

"Thank you; I don't deserve this honour." Holly giggled.

"Of course you do! One day you shall be told forwhy this came to be; for now you may trust in my claim."

"Saphienne," Nelathiel said, moving to face her without releasing her arm, "this introduction is because there will be spirits at the festival. Some will dwell within elves: you'll know them by their yellow eyes. Elder Tolduin believes you're recovered enough to enjoy some of the festivities." She'd aimed for as much.

"…Am I?"

"He'd know best." Nelathiel couldn't quite hide how upset she was to say so.

"Holly thinks so too; she's kept me informed about your health. I want to ask you to help me during the second day of the solstice. If you'd like, you could read the story you've written to the children." Manipulating Tolduin had unfolded flawlessly.

"Wouldn't they prefer puppetry?"

"They'd like both. I have a puppet dragon; I could act out the scenes for you…" Complicit as priest and spirit were in harming Saphienne, at least they were useful. * Summertime neared. Professing artistic struggles, Saphienne set her six completed stones aside to return to wood, carving statues of elves and spirits that gradually surrounded her part of the workspace.

She was adamant that she didn't want them moved: their audience was granting her confidence that she could overcome her problems, or so she said when pressed. Midway through their preparation, she was roughing out the tree she would need when two unforeseen visitors stopped by.

"As I said, apprentice: tremendously recovered!" Without that warning she would have strained to refrain from blinking, surprised to see the woman in black Almon had brought with him.

"Hello," she greeted the newcomer.

"Have we met before? Is your name… Celaena?" Happiness made Celaena unable to respond, her brown, looping braids shaking and eyes glimmering as she covered her mouth. She cleared her throat of swallowed tears, then strode to Saphienne with the self-assurance she demanded of herself as a wizard-to-be.

"I'm touched that you remember."

"You came to see me when I was…" Saphienne shook her head.

"…I don't remember that period well. We were once friends."

"Are friends." The apprentice had made up her mind on the spot.

"We are friends, Saphienne. I'm sorry we haven't been able to spend time together." Indignant fury wouldn't advance Saphienne's cause.

"I wasn't well." She glanced to Almon, seeming as though weighing her words.

"…I know people try not to show it, but how I used to be was upsetting for everyone. Everyone but Almon doubted I'd get better." The wizard folded his arms and beamed his smugness into the tent, earning glares from Gaeleath and Sundamar.

"So, I understand," she promised.

"I'm just sorry I don't know you like I should." That calculated overture struck Celaena hard, and she threw her arms around Saphienne, ignoring Sundamar's complaint.

"…Odd bird…" *"I'll be taking care of you. We're going to be best friends again." Celaena made her vow without asking Saphienne's opinion.

"Master Almon has entrusted me to reintroduce you to the village. People need to see you before the festival — I'll be accompanying you on the day, alongside Sundamar." She fussed over Saphienne like a mother hen, dismayed by the bland hairstyle constraining goldening locks, unimpressed by the silvery white clothes that did nothing to emphasise a distinctive figure.

"You don't know how pretty you are! I'll fix that. I have a dress you wore to the last summer festival, and some jewellery that goes with it. We'll make you gorgeous again; everyone will see you're still the elf they loved." Saphienne could tell that Celaena was soothing herself. Offered the opportunity, the apprentice was penning a narrative of her own, one in which she authored the restoration of her friend.

Not that Saphienne would be allowed to be too much like her old self: she was to be a harmless caricature of the person who'd come before. Once a week, Celaena took Saphienne for walks, stopping in at the bakery; the tea house; every public place except the library. She guided her ward with the same authority wielded by Almon, telling the dragon how to behave, oblivious to her own condescension, comfortable in the position she'd been assigned. She meant well, but Celaena had become yet another jailor.

* Sunset drifted later into the evening. Saphienne had assembled most of what she required, and was finally ready for a reunion she'd deferred, eager to reveal the heights to which she'd ascended unobserved. The magician placed a sculpture of her younger self in her bedroom window. Hyacinth had been waiting. She rejoined her master that same night, leaping across her field to kiss the confused – and now seldom used – decoy before she was grabbed and drawn down into the depths for which she lusted.

Saphienne chuckled as the shelves and plinths took shape around them.

"I'm pleased to see you haven't lost your–" The spirit set upon her lover with ferocious ardour. Not another word was exchanged for a considerable time, though much was exchanged between them. *"…Mercy…" Hyacinth relented, lifting her head to lean her chin on Saphienne's thigh.

"Have I a dragon slain?"

"You've won a reprieve for yourself." The magician stroked her petalled brow with claws that were too spent for gentleness, knowing from recent experience that their sharpness didn't deter the bloomkith.

"You remain my most prized possession."

"With pride of place within your hoard?"

"I love you." Red of welt and blossom, Hyacinth clambered up to kiss Saphienne tenderly, then nestled into her side.

"If what I feel for you equals that felt by more than spirits… still my love is less than you deserve. All the world should love you."

"I'll settle for your love — which surpasses the love of most elves."

"Even though I am their echo?" Saphienne sat up.

"You're more than an echo. You're a song of the woodlands, and not just the sunny glades preferred by elves." Her smile was small.

"You can't choose to be other than you are… but then, who really can? And of those who can, how many do?" The thought stirred Hyacinth; she was contemplative when she rose.

"…I had not considered that…"

"While you were gone," Saphienne confessed, "I thought about you every night. Myself as well; all the different ways in which I'm embodied, and how you might be changed when you're my familiar. I've come to the conclusion that – despite your limits – you're more a person than Sundamar and most others. That isn't metaphor: I'm being literal."

"They are capable of reflecting and choosing in a way I cannot."

"But regardless of whether you can, Hyacinth, you want to." She embraced the bloomkith with her twining tail.

"Which is more important? The ability to change for the better, never used? Or the sincere desire to do so, frustrated?" The spirit was reluctant to concede.

"You inspired that desire. I did not choose it."

"So what? I didn't choose most of what's been inspired in me. To the extent that I'm right or wrong, I'm what the world has made me, and I exercise precious little control over the path I walk through it." She peered at her master.

"Elven wisdom values self-examination; Athidyn always encouraged Iolas to take up the practice. Of this do you speak, when you scorn Sundamar and his ilk."

"I've forgiven Almon." Saphienne placed claw to lips to stifle objection.

"Let me finish! I've forgiven him because – for all his glaring flaws, and the significant hurt his actions have caused – I believe he's trying his best to live an examined life." She lifted her hand away as she continued.

"Almon is a self-centred, selfish man, but he doesn't want to be — he's fighting who he has been made into."

"And losing."

"I'm not absolving him of wrongdoing… he'll suffer the consequences. I'm only choosing to forgive what he did to me. He was the sole person in the room who had to be forced to submit." Her teeth were vicious.

"Sundamar knew what they were doing was wrong, and persisted. Danyn likes ugliness. And of the two sorcerers, Vestaele is the only one who can truly examine herself, and she has chosen poorly." Colours rippled through blooms as Hyacinth grappled with the point.

"…To whatever extent I have agency, I try to be all I might; whatever agency they have, they waste on merely who they are."

"You are more of a person than Sundamar. And a better person than Vestaele," Saphienne snorted, "no matter whether you chose to be this way." Tranquillity had settled upon Hyacinth like a shroud; she soon took Saphienne's hand, rising to lead her out of the pavilion and then from underneath the weeping willow, ending at the island's shore to gaze up in companionable reverie. And gasp.

"What is this I behold? What shines within your sunken sky?" A swirling star flickered in blue, yellow, and white, not a constellation of those colours, but simultaneously all three. Saphienne slid behind the bloomkith and kissed her neck.

"I created this for you," she whispered.

"An equivalent spell to the Second Sense."

"For me?"

"I'm going to teach you how to receive sigils I've memorised, and cast them." Saphienne cradled her beloved.

"I know your secret name. With it I can impart anything I can conceive. I need you to be my eyes and ears in the woodlands: there are things I must scrutinise if we are to be free." Hyacinth trembled.

"…This is the magic of dragons…"

"You needn't be a dragon to cast a draconic spell. In a way, I'll be casting it through you — familiarising you with my magic before making you my familiar." The bloomkith turned and looped her arms around her master.

"When shall that be?"

"After we have passed from the woodlands; after our work is done." She heard the promise, ominous in portent.

"… What have you planned?" Saphienne shared. Then, she spent the rest of the night convincing Hyacinth to obey. * Progress accompanied the progression of the seasons. Hyacinth was unnerved by how swiftly she grasped the instruction she received, soon proficient in casting all the dragon bestowed. She could neither memorise nor internalise sigils herself, but what Saphienne prepared the bloomkith could enact, the magic that animated her sufficient to manifest minor spells without the magician's support.

Her inspections of the floraliths in the sacred glades – and the ley lines feeding them – let Saphienne analyse while dreaming what couldn't be reached while waking. What Hyacinth relayed would be enough to complete the sigils emerging in the stone. The reckoning neared. * As did its portents. Despite occurring earlier than in previous years, Saphienne was composed when she heard Filaurel bickering with Sundamar.

The librarian would be involved in organising the solstice festival, she reasoned, and so Almon must have granted a dispensation. She compelled herself to hum pleasantly in the lull before the storm, glad Gaeleath was away on an errand.

"Good morning Saphienne," Filaurel said as she entered, timid as she crossed to the circle of statues.

"How are you feeling?" Murderous.

"I'm in a good mood." She continued staring at the green stone as she stepped back, redirecting her anger into the roughness with which she wiped clean her chisel, grateful for the cloth mask obscuring her unsmiling mouth.

"I might complete the set before the festival.

"But," she laughed, pivoting to the librarian, "you won't know what I'm talking about. Hello again: you're Filaurel, aren't you?" A curse upon the elf for the tears she shed.

"…Yes." Saphienne made her gaze sympathetic.

"Seeing me like this must be a relief." And curse the elf twice for the expression that flitted across her face, that of inconsolable loss, obscene outrage, contemptible resignation, and appropriate self-recrimination.

"…I'm happy you're enjoying yourself."

"Thank the gods! I've put the calligraphy set you gave me to good use." Filaurel was adept at burying her despair. She took a deep breath, folding her arms as she stepped over the boundary.

"I don't have a gift today… not anything physical. Tolduin has agreed I can spend more time with you. Almon isn't pleased about it — or at least he's pretending not to be, when in earshot." Not what Saphienne wanted… but perhaps it could further her vengeance.

"Celaena has been reintroducing me to the village. We're friends." Her tone was innocent and warm when she asked, "Are you and I to be friends?" Thrown by the question, Filaurel withdrew a pace… Then dropped her hands and clenched them as she willed herself forward.

"More than friends; we were very close. I'd like to have that relationship again." Sickened, Saphienne bowed to her rising bile.

"That sounds nice."

"…No…" Eliciting a dispirited sigh from Sundamar, who knew better than to bother objecting, the librarian swept up her former apprentice in a hug, holding the magician against herself as she choked out what she needed to say.

"…Not like we were. I…" Saphienne was paralysed.

"…I love you." The dragon closed her traitorous eyes. Now? After all that she'd done? Now? After rejecting her when she was most needed? Now? After refusing to accept her true nature, and betraying her to the pious and wicked? Now, she chose to say those words?

"I'm sorry…" Filaurel let go with a self-deprecating laugh.

"…That was too soon; you won't know why I'm behaving this way." Death would be merciful compared to what Saphienne felt then. Were she not sworn to uphold larger principles, and were Hyacinth not depending on her, she would have driven the chisel into Filaurel's wretched heart.

"I must seem very strange to you." Humbled by an existential irony that wielded her past in cutting mockery, Saphienne had barely the strength to utter an honest answer.

"Yes." Filaurel was indeed assisting the organising committee for the festival. She would be busy until the third day, but pledged they would get to know one another again afterward, when all the drama had concluded. The next evening, after Saphienne had quietened the eerie and chilling rains that fell within her cavernous heart, she asked Lynnariel to read'The Girl and the Gulls' again, this time without the fascinator as intermediary.

Her mother recognised the request was unusual, especially given they hadn't read together in several months. Lynnariel concealed the significance from the watchful warden, taking care to giggle affectionately when she remarked, "I get tired of the fascinator too! What about you, Myrinel?"

"I prefer reading without one," he admitted.

"I've never much liked them." Saphienne played along.

"Because they dull your senses?" He shrugged.

"I don't believe they do… it's more as though everything is less real after using them. Or not less real, exactly; the world is less sentimental than fantasy, and coming back to it feels a little hollow. But it's not actually like that at all, is it?" Intrigued, Lynnariel leant forward.

"How do you mean?"

"Fantasies are filled with things we can't let out." He was blushing as mother and daughter studied him, but pressed on.

"I don't like fascinators because they show too much. They're intensifying… clarifying, in a way. Stories mirror the world, and the enchantment makes us feel things about it we usually don't dare. Things we aren't always ready for." Saphienne's disguise subtly slipped.

"What aren't you ready for?" His eyes widened.

"…I'm not sure at all. I'd guess it's the difference? That the way I am is missing something, compared to what I've read." Her history with her mother's fascinator was thrown into sharp relief.

"I can relate to that… what were you reading that upset you?" Lynnariel grew anxious.

"Saphienne…"

"It's alright," Myrinel reassured them, "I'll share — but promise not to tell Sundamar. He doesn't read much, and the stories he does read are all action. He'd make a joke if he knew." Invested, they each gave their word.

"It was a story about a painter. It felt autobiographical, or maybe written by someone who was close to the narrator; I couldn't find out anything about the author. Whoever it was must have lived in the Eastern Vale, but there's no one by their name here or anywhere in the local woodlands." Myrinel caught himself prevaricating.

"Anyway, the painter was very talented, and he had a family and lots of friends, but there was something in him that couldn't let him be at peace with himself. He kept trying to explain it, but he never could. It started to drive him mad, and he had paranoid thoughts about everything and everyone around him." Mesmerised, Saphienne's breathing shallowed.

"What unnerved me was that… I could see myself as him? Feeling like a stranger. Being a guest in a home that isn't your own, intruding on your hosts, who are nice, but who don't really want you to be there." He peered up at the ceiling.

"Or, maybe they would want you there, but they don't know you, and they never seem to get to know you, no matter how hard you try. So why are they tolerating you? And after a while those thoughts turned inward, and the painter became paranoid about himself, like he was the problem."

"Wasn't he?" Lynnariel wondered.

"He was troubled… but he blamed himself in ways that made no sense. He convinced himself that he wasn't really who he should be. Not because he was unhappy, but because who he was shouldn't exist." The warden exhaled.

"The author made it easy to empathise, and the fascinator… that made it too much." Myrinel looked back to his audience.

"But I finished the story, and the ending upset me in a way I can't make sense of." Foreboding sent Saphienne sinking back in her chair.

"What happened?"

"He killed himself." Myrinel shuddered.

"Drowned himself. Left a painting of himself in bright colours on the shore and waded out. But then… he woke up in his bedroom, and realised his whole life was just a dream. That was the end." Lynnariel groaned.

"That's awful! The ending was sad, but that ruins it." Yet neither Myrinel nor Saphienne agreed, the former because what it conveyed was beyond his capacity to contain, the latter because she recognised it within herself…

"Who would write something like that?" As was its author. She inquired after his name. *"Brilliantly realised! A ferocious beast," Almon complimented Saphienne as he studied the eighth polished stone.

"Reminiscent of anatomical sketches I've seen. Did you consult any references?"

"Nelathiel has a puppet." She kept working on the ninth, trying to ignore both him and the distraction caused by Sundamar helping Gaeleath carry the last of the animal-inscribed steps from the studio.

"The rest is embellishment."

"Art and truth are interwoven." The wizard patted her shoulder amicably.

"Do you have a theory of art, Saphienne?" Acknowledging to herself that she couldn't continue while he interrupted, she set down her tools and spun to him.

"I haven't really given it much thought. I've been too busy trying to meet my deadline…" He didn't take the hint.

"Then what are your thoughts?" She suppressed her tired ears' desire to droop.

"If you must hear them… I think imperfections are what makes art great." He folded his arms, rocking back on his heels.

"Interesting! Continue."

"Sufficient skill can make perfect likenesses, but that strips out the artist, and the artist is what gives life to a work." Her irritation dissolved in her contemplation.

"Whether or not we hear what the artist says, their voice is what calls to us. Life is imperfect; art must reflect the imperfections of its artist to be alive. Beauty emerges from their arrangement."

"Ah, but these pieces you've made are flawless! Are they then not art?"

"They're hardly flawless. The flaws obscure each other."

"So then," he grinned, "they are perfected imperfection! Is that not a contradiction?" Snorting, she rolled her eyes.

"I think not." Almon paled. Too late, Saphienne pushed the mask of her performance back into place.

"I try not to think about it at all; I trust the gods to guide my work, for They know best." Yet Almon wasn't deceived. She saw him; saw him see her; saw him behold resurrected the woman she'd been; saw him grapple with the impossibility; saw him believe in her talent; saw him reflexively open his mouth to call out…

"…Very good." And saw him foretell what his call would bring down upon her, letting the dragon lie.

"I can't confess to understanding the artistry, but you know your own mind. Superbly done, Saphienne." She stared at Almon in astonishment as he bowed and took his leave. End of Chapter 147