KINGDOM OF THE STONE -- a Wattpad featured novel

Chapter Thirteen

Karux lost all sense of time. He spent hours, possibly days, wandering through the wilderness before his senses returned. He had just decided to climb the sacred mountain and throw himself off, finishing the job of killing himself that he'd begun nearly two years before, when his father found him at twilight stumbling through the trees. His father took him home and put him to bed. He didn't get up for three months.

He slept, without dreams or visions until the end of summer when he dreamt he had been buried alive. He felt the weight of the dirt pressing down on his arms and legs, crushing the breath from his lungs. Karux clawed upwards, kicking and squirming, desperate to break out. When at last the cool air brushed his hand, he awoke in bed with one arm upraised. He sat up, gasping, and waited for his breath to slow. Then he rose, shrugged on a tunic and went outside.

The sky had only begun to lighten, though true dawn was still some time off. No breath of wind disturbed the air. Standing on his doorstep, Karux heard the faint stone-on-stone grinding of the keleos mill.

Little eight-year-old Eiraena, still wearing her dirty shift, leaned over the stone coping, rocking the mill stone back and forth. Curious, Karux walked over and watched her roll the large round stone over tiny pieces of stone that glinted in the dawning light.

"No! She couldn't have!" He put out a hand and stopped the stone.

Eiraena pulled at the grinding stone but could not move it. Reaching in, she pulled out a piece of clear stone about the size of a wheat grain and held it up to Karux.

There could be no doubt. It was his stone. He couldn't imagine her somehow finding her way to the stoma and the pieces he left there, nor could he see someone else collecting them and leaving them where she could find it, yet here she was holding out a fragment of the stone, offering it to him. When he didn't take it, she put it in her mouth and swallowed it.

As the sun peeked over the horizon, it lit her face. Her eyes flashed a brown so light they were almost golden. He thought it strange that he'd never noticed them before.

Eiraena turned back to fish out another glittering piece of stone and offered it to him. He held out his hand and she carefully placed the small fragment in his palm. He glanced from the stone to the girl, puzzled. She opened and closed her mouth as if chewing. On a whim he stuck it in his mouth and swallowed.

Eiraena returned to the mill having, seemingly, forgotten him. Karux sat and watched her for half an hour, meticulously scraping and picking at the sparkling dust until she had gathered it all up. She carefully carried it over to one of two clay pots next to a pile of twigs and brush. She poured the dust into a gourd-shaped pot filled with water and set the pot on the brush. Then she took the second clay pot and blew into it, sending ashes up in her face. She blew several more times, sneezing once, then dumped glowing coals into the brush and blew on them.

When the first tongues of flame licked up, Karux nearly leaped up and stamped them out. He knew Eiraena's parents would not want her playing with fire, but her strangely deliberate behavior puzzled him. Sensing a purpose in her actions, he watched her feed more twigs into the fire. She did not build the fire high, but kept it burning at a strong steady pace. When the first wisps of steam appeared in the gourd shaped pot, she dropped a clay plug in the narrow mouth. Soon steam rose in a needle-thin stream from the pot.

Karux helped her gather more twigs when the fire began to die down, then returned to sit with her and stare into the fire. As the day wore on villagers occasional spoke to them, but neither Karux nor Eiraena replied. Something about the flickering of the fire and the coiling of the smoke captured his attention so that everything else faded into a blur. A warmth grew in his belly and he burped up a strange metallic after-taste, wondering if swallowing the stone had been wise. He had heard Mahd Mela say that some minerals could be poisonous and he hoped he wouldn't regret swallowing the stone.