Hope in Ruins Book III: The Fountain and the City of Salt

Chapter 25: The Fountain Covered in Snow

ANDA

Before them, just beyond trees heavy with white, stood a stone fountain. Its' three basins filled with snow.

Sky. Mountains.

She looked behind her, over Eli's shoulder, and saw the mountains under and darkening sky.

"Anda, leave me here. Please...."

"No. We can't let them find you."

"It's over, Anda. I can't run anymore. At least they won't get you. Here, leave me. Let me rest...."

Anda tried to argue, but nothing came. She had no answer for the tired man with the trembling mouth. Slowly, they approached the fountain. When they reached the stone, Eli collapsed at the edge, resting his foot with a wince. Anda slumped to the earth, her legs unwilling to run anymore, and leaned against the fountain. Above her, the stars began to glint beyond the mountain.

Perseus.

A feeling, like drowning, filled her, and she gasped because this was the end. And fear was at her side, wrapping cold and bony arms around her. And cowardice joined her.

"Go," Eli said. "Keep running. I'll draw them here while you get away."

Anda pushed herself to her feet, torn between saving this man and saving herself. Slowly, she looked up at the fountain, gray and white in the dimness of the falling night. Despite wanting to run, this fountain drew her. Seeing it, real and solid and covered in snow, touched something in her.

"Go, Anda!" Eli said sharply.

"But... but I can't. I... I can't just leave you here."

"Of course you can, go!"

"No! I won't leave you here to die. I've tried changing it, I've tried not changing it, but even when I change it—maybe I don't. Does it always end in kilns?"

Eli stared up into the falling snow. "We defy augury," he said. His voice low and cold and deep. Snow clung to his eyelashes and lips and collected on the top of his head and shoulders. "Anda... Ben isn't Perseus."

She blinked in surprise. "But, everyone said... Ben said...."

"Ben doesn't know everything. But I do. Anda... you are Perseus."

The word hung in the air between them, almost a solid and real thing.

"No.... No, I'm not... Perseus. Ben is Perseus. Ben can... save Burners."

"Yes, he can save Burners, but you can save us all. Don't give up, Anda. We defy augury. Defy it, and choose to be. Now, run. Go, save yourself. Save Perseus."

Anda stared at the fountain covered in snow and wondered if she dared to be Perseus.

Yes, to save them, she could try.

And then that seed in Anda's mind burst to life.

All the possibilities, all the futures, all the branches of time flooded her mind. She gasped, trying to keep her heart steady, but her heart raced faster than she had ever felt it, nearly bursting with pain. Her visions were like the veins on a flower petal. They separated and diverged and branched, and she saw everything.

She saw not just the most likely of possibilities but the unlikely and least likely and the nearly impossible as well. As she saw them, they disappeared and moved and changed. The future seemed a living, breathing thing, dependent on the choices and actions of a million people with a million desires and needs and actions, possibilities all shifting and changing, in constant motion. She saw them as if she were staring into a forest, the branches moving and waving, the leaves dancing and shuddering and blowing away and growing and spinning....