One More Step

Shardeen shifted chunks of rubble, revealing the remains of the engraved box. The lid remained mostly intact. A crack ran along the center. Reaching hesitantly, she trailed her fingers over the lid, recalling its constant presence on her father’s desk. Every time she’d seen him opened it and retrieve the Talorin Quill within.

Shardeen clutched the lid’s edge, lifting it from the rubble. She wanted to heave at the sight of the steel pen’s bent and twisted point. She curled over from the weight of the destroyed relic. This stung more harshly than her first view of the city’s wreckage.

Everything was lost.

“Shardeen,” Mathis’s said, his crackling with nervous energy. “We need to go. It isn’t safe here.”

“Is it safe anywhere?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her words. Mathis paused. “But you’re right. We need to go.”

Heaving herself up from the ground, she brushed the dust of rubble from her britches. In her other hand she stared at the Talorin Quill.

Mathis gasped. He hadn’t seen it before and understood instantly. “But the seals.” He stammered over the words.

“Are broken.” Shardeen raised her gaze from the quill. Beyond Mathis the other stood equally dismayed.

“What do we do?” Trindell asked. Shardeen gazed the woman, her old maid. She’d accompanied them before for no reason than nostalgic loyalty. Loyalty which had saved her from the city’s fall.

“The only thing we can.” Shardeen walked past Mathis, past them all, placing her hand on each’s shoulder. Stopping at Trindell, she took the woman’s hand. “We take one more step.”

Trindell’s lips thinned at the words she’d told Shardeen as a child, but she nodded. Words Shardeen had heard countless times when she’d despaired at ever becoming the daughter her father needed.

Did history’s grip never lessen?

One more step. Turning, Shardeen pressed the ruined quill to her chest and began walking. Only one way to find out.