Belford's Heart

Chapter 20: Field of Stone

They made haste to the West. The days following their visit to Natalia's temple held a barrage of questioning from Evelyn about all she wished to know about her and Philip's relationship. She had given up on the third day after Philip had remained unspoken and lost in Avalonia's tome. Belford enjoyed the bickering as they rode.

Each night, Philip had been working on teaching Belford how to read the light of the moons and the stars surrounding them. According to Philip, while direction was consistent all across the world, Avalonia being in the North meant that the constellations rotated to the right around a center point marked by a star known as Lot. Named after the second two of Avalonia's chosen from the world before, Philip told them that it was the scholars of the flying cities that found this rotation. It led to generations of progress in naval navigation and astronomy. The placement of their world in relation to all things in the sky were found to be measurable around Lot, which just so happened to be discovered by the man himself.

On the night of the sixth day, as Evelyn and Philip slept upon the now rocky fields neighboring the trail, Belford performed his first reading of the Twin Moons all on his own. Philip had taught him that the larger of the two, though larger by a very small amount to the naked eye, was called Theo. The other was called Lora. Philip told him that the moons were known as twins because they were named for two more of the creator's chosen from the world before. Theodore and Elora, born in Evelyn's homeland of Lastor, were given the task of joining those to carry the world of men into the new age. In their honor, and their ultimate success, they now fly above the world to witness the world they delivered from darkness.

Theo and Lora both flew above Belford in the phase that marked one week past their halfway point to fullness. They mirrored one another as crescents shining down onto him. They would mirror one another until they become full as one just one full month from that night. Belford took a moment to look over and watch Evelyn breathe in her sleep. For one, he would be able to ease his mind as she was again alive during his checks. For another, her face had become a calming and wonderful escape from the ever-foreign ground beneath their feet.

In the temple, she had asked him a question he never thought to prepare an answer for. What if I choose to stand at your side? It was a ridiculous, unimaginable question that he had given the most miserable answer for. There would never be words enough, certainly ones that he knew to conjure, that would have told her just how much he wanted that to be her choice in the end. Since that morning he had tried to keep from meeting eyes with her whenever he could help it. Unlike anyone else in the world, she made his heart race within his chest as though he were being chased by ten of Grifford's lost brothers and sisters. He thought it fitting for his own luck that the one person to make him feel this way also shared the very heart racing within him. There would never be any hiding in this way from Evelyn, but certainly her heart would not be the same once they found it. Still, in the quiet moments of the moonlit light, he imagined her face near to hers again. The dimples at the ends of her smile like clouds within sunlight, the fullness of her irises and their singular color, and her hair like the soft bed of snow beneath the forest that had brought her to him; all had him wishing to know how her heart would be for him. A foolish wish, and he knew it was. His necessity would be the last of her needs to stand with him. He would find her somewhere beautiful to be one day; with or without him, her heart would one day beat on its own in a body that knew peace again.

The morning came and went. Belford prepared the meat of three hares he had snared in the night. Grifford found less and less glassblossom petals as they rode. In fact, the expansive plains of green painted in endless strokes of color had become small woods within fields of stone. They would even out as they drew nearer to the final place marked within Avalonia on Vathan's map: Ghaulton. The sea had eventually welcomed another consistent forest, though much thinner than those that had come before it. They had seen plenty of travelers headed to the East, but as they drew nearer to the marked city they became more and more frequent. Many traveled to the villages that were speckled along the coast and within the rocky plains. All would be a distraction; they simply had no time to entertain, and Belford continued to will them forward.