Page 10

FENELLA

F enella settled deeper into the plush sofa, acutely aware of the weight of expectation from every corner of Kalugal's living room. The figurine sat on the coffee table before them, its pale stone surface catching the light from the skylights above, the glow mimicking the goddess's but not quite.

Such a small thing to carry such enormous hope.

The last time she'd attempted psychometry with Kyra and Jasmine bolstering her ability, the visions had hit her like a freight train. She wasn't eager for a repeat performance, especially not with an audience of immortal royalty watching her every move.

"We should sit closer together and hold hands," Jasmine suggested, scooting towards Kyra. "We need physical contact with each other."

Fenella moved in from the other side as Kyra's hand rose to touch her amber pendant. "This is like a supernatural séance," Fenella muttered, then caught Din's encouraging look from where he was sitting in one of Kalugal's fancy chairs that didn't look comfortable.

All these modern pieces were mainly designed to look good. Function was a secondary consideration.

Jasmine chuckled. "I wouldn't call it a séance. We're not trying to contact spirits. It's just reading the echoes left behind in the stone."

"Right. Echoes." Fenella wiped her palms on her pants, annoyed at herself for being nervous. She'd faced down drunken patrons, survived decades on the run, endured unspeakable abuse, and here she was, intimidated by what secrets a tiny statue might hold. "Let's get on with it then."

Jasmine carefully lifted the figurine and handed it to Fenella, who cradled it in her left hand while extending her right toward Kyra. "Ready when you are."

Kyra took her offered hand, and Fenella noted how steady and warm Kyra's hand was compared to her own slightly clammy palm.

With Fenella in the center and Kyra and Jasmine flanking her, the three of them focused inwards and…nothing happened.

"Should we close our eyes?" Kyra asked.

"It might help with focus," Jasmine agreed.

Fenella nodded, though the idea of blocking off sensory input while surrounded by people made her even more nervous than she already was. It went against the survival instinct she'd honed over fifty years of running.

She had to remind herself that she was among friends and had nothing to fear. Din was there, her newly discovered cousins were beside her, and the Clan Mother herself sat across from them, radiating the kind of power that no enemy would be stupid enough to underestimate.

There was no safer place on the face of the Earth for her. She could do this.

"Alright." Fenella forced her eyes shut. "Here goes nothing."

At first, there was only darkness behind her eyelids, the sound of her own breathing, and the small sounds everyone around her was making—the soft rustle of fabric as someone shifted position, and the faint whir of air conditioning.

Still, nothing was coming through.

The figurine might as well have been mass-produced in China for all the psychic impression it was giving off.

"I'm not getting anything," she started to say when Jasmine's hand tightened around hers.

"Give it a moment," Jasmine murmured. "Sometimes it takes time to?—"

The vision slammed into Fenella with the force of a battering ram. One moment she was sitting on a comfortable sofa in Kalugal's underground mansion, and the next she was somewhere else entirely, seeing through eyes that weren't her own.

A workshop. Small, cramped, with stone dust dancing in shafts of sunlight streaming through a single window.

The air tasted dry and gritty, carrying the sharp tang of worked stone and the underlying sweetness of wood shavings.

Through the borrowed eyes, Fenella saw hands—not her own, but weathered and strong, marked with the countless small scars that came from years of working with tools on wood and stone.

The carver.

She was experiencing his memories, seeing through his eyes as he worked.

The figurine took shape slowly under his patient hands, each stroke of the chisel deliberate and careful.

This wasn't his usual medium—Fenella could feel his slight uncertainty with the stone, the way he had to adjust his technique from the wood he typically worked with.

But there was something driving him, a compulsion that went beyond a simple task of producing something pretty that people would pay to own.

His thoughts came to her not in words she could understand—the language was unfamiliar to her—but in impressions and emotions that transcended linguistic barriers.

Devotion.

That was what she felt strongest. This man was devoted to his task because he felt inspired and moved.

The scene shifted, jumping forward in time like a fast-forwarded movie. Now the figurine was nearly complete, needing only the finer details. The carver set down his tools and reached for something on a high shelf—another figurine wrapped in soft cloth.

When he carefully unwrapped it, Fenella's breath caught in her throat—or would have, if she'd been in control of the body she was experiencing this through.

This was the master figurine he was copying, and it was exquisite.

Where the copy was merely beautiful, this was transcendent.

The stone seemed to glow with an inner light that had nothing to do with the shafts of sunshine filtering through the workshop window.

Every line, every curve spoke of an artist who had captured more than just the likeness of Annani but also some of her essence.

The carver handled it with the reverence one might show a holy relic.

His thoughts were a jumble of awe and longing, though for what, Fenella couldn't quite grasp.

He studied the original carefully, comparing it to his own work, and she felt his frustration at his inability to capture that ineffable quality that made the original so extraordinary.

But he was close.

The workshop door opened, and a woman entered—his wife, Fenella understood through the warm rush of affection that colored the carver's thoughts.

She said something in that unknown language, her tone gently chiding.

The carver responded with words Fenella couldn't understand but a tone she recognized—the universal sound of a husband promising he'd be done soon, just a few more minutes.

The woman approached, bringing with her the scent of baked goods.

She looked at both figurines, the original and the copy, and even through the carver's eyes, Fenella could see her expression soften with wonder.

She reached out as if to touch the original, then pulled her hand back, clearly thinking better of it.

More words were exchanged, and then the woman left, but not before pressing a kiss to the carver's weathered cheek.

Alone again, he returned his attention to the figurines, the original and the copy he was making.

Putting the copy on his worktable, he lifted the original, turning it over in his hands to examine it from every angle, and as he did, the bottom came into view. There, carved into the base in tiny, precise characters, was an inscription.

The script was unfamiliar—not quite pictographic but not alphabetic either. The symbols seemed to flow into each other, creating a pattern that was both artistic and functional. Fenella forced herself to focus, to memorize every line, every curve, every minute detail of the inscription.

The carver ran his thumb over it, and through his touch, Fenella felt something. A resonance, as if the carved symbols themselves held their own memories. The carver must have felt it too because his hands trembled slightly before he carefully set the figurine down.

The vision jumped forward again. Now the workshop was busier, with children helping to clean and wrap various carved items, preparing them for sale.

The copy of Annani's figurine sat on a special shelf, complete and painted in bright colors, and in his hand was another copy he was working on.

The carver would look at it sometimes with an expression of mingled pride and dissatisfaction.

He'd come close to capturing the original's beauty, but he still wasn't happy with the result.

Days blended into one another in that strange, compressed way of memory.

Fenella saw glimpses of the carver's life and the steady rhythm of his work.

Always, the original figurine remained wrapped and hidden, brought out only when he needed to reference it for some detail or simply to marvel at its perfection, and the first copy he'd made sat on the worktable, serving as the model for many more just like it.

None achieved the perfection of the original, though, which frustrated the carver to no end.

She wanted to tell him that perfectionism was a horrible trait that led to nothing but misery, but the connection between them flowed in just one direction. Besides, the man was long gone, probably spending many years trying to reach the perfection of the original and never quite making it.

On occasion, he would take out the original just to look at it, to run his fingers over that inscription at the base, and each time he did, Fenella paid attention, committing the image of those symbols into her memory.

The workshop was filled with other pieces—wooden carvings mostly that weren't as intricate, practical items and decorative ones alike. The carver's wife and children would take them to sell at the market, returning with coins and supplies.

It was a decent life, filled with the small joys of family, but always, the carver's thoughts would return to the original figurine and the mystery it represented. Who had carved it?

How had he captured such ethereal beauty in stone?

The vision began to fade, the workshop growing dimmer, the sensory details becoming less distinct. Fenella tried to hold on, to glean just a bit more information, but it was like trying to grasp smoke.

Then she was back in her own body, sitting on Kalugal's sofa with her eyes closed and her hand clasped around the figurine.

The transition was jarring—from the dry heat of the workshop to the climate-controlled comfort of the underground mansion, from the scent of stone dust to the lingering aroma of Atzil's cooking.

Fenella opened her eyes, blinking against the sudden brightness. Her head spun slightly, and she felt a little disoriented. This time, however, she felt energized instead of drained.

"Oh, wow. This was incredible," she said. "I was actually there, with all of the sensory input. I felt the heat, I smelled the wood and the stone and even the carver's own sweat."

"Gross," Jasmine murmured. "I could have done without that input."

"You felt it too?" Fenella asked.

Jasmine nodded, and so did Kyra.

"Did you see the inscription?" she asked, looking between Kyra and Jasmine. "The carving on the bottom of the original figurine?"

Jasmine nodded, her eyes bright with excitement. "I did. I need a piece of paper to write it down before the image fades."

"You didn't understand it either?" Kyra asked.

Jasmine shook her head. "No, I hoped you did."

"It wasn't Arabic or Farsi." She grimaced. "The vision was blurry for me, and I didn't get the same sensory input as the two of you. I think I was seeing it through Fenella's eyes rather than experiencing it directly."

"We need to write it down," Fenella turned to look at Kalugal. "Or rather, draw what we saw before we forget the details."

Kalugal rose to his feet. "I'll be back in a moment."

He returned promptly with several sheets of paper and pencils. "Here," he distributed them among the three of them.

Fenella grabbed a pencil, her hand moving almost of its own accord as she tried to recreate the symbols.

It was harder than she'd expected. The inscription had been small, precisely carved, and she'd been seeing it through someone else's eyes.

But she did her best, drawing each symbol as accurately as her memory allowed.

Beside her, Jasmine and Kyra did the same, and while they worked on the inscription, everyone else watched them with bated breath. The room was silent except for the scratch of three pencils on paper and the barely audible breathing of their audience.

"That's the best I can do." Fenella stood up and walked over to Kalugal. "I hope you can decipher the language."

When he frowned, her heart sank.

Kyra and Jasmine handed him their creations next, and as he laid them out side by side on the coffee table, Fenella could see that they'd all captured the same basic symbols, though with slight variations in detail and proportions.

Kalugal studied the drawings intently. "I think this is written in the old language," he said finally.

Gathering up the papers, he walked over to where the Clan Mother sat. "You are more fluent in the old script than I am. Perhaps you can read what it says?"

Annani accepted the papers, and the silence in the room was absolute as everyone waited for her to speak.