The Icon Unbound

Chapter Seven, Part A - The Icon

So, this was a tough chapter to write. Usually, when I write someone this stressed out they can act out in physical ways. This Icon internalizes everything. She doesn't have a choice. It made me frustrated when I wrote it...but it is one of the most important aspects of her character. Please let me know if I got it right. Thanks to all who have stuck with me so far! --Elizabeth, UPDATED 05/10/2017

Waterwall cried out to her, even as she slept. Connected to her in ways that she did not fully understand, the world communicated its grievances to where she was, at the center of a massive web of power. Strange vibrations plucked random threads in that web, disturbing her rest. When she investigated, everything seemed maddeningly in order. This web was not her own making, and there were times she felt she didn't understand it at all.

Dreams filled with disturbing, bloody images startled her into wakefulness.

The Icon shot up, her breath coming in pants and gasps. Moonlight did not seep into the Tower like sunlight, but that didn't matter. The glow of her skin provided all the illumination she needed.

Slipping one arm around her stomach, she threw off the covers and hobbled towards the water closet. Once there she struggled with the matches and the lamp, finally setting it on the stone counter next to the basin. Lifting the ladle on the copper pump she allowed a generous amount of steaming water from the underground hot spring splash into the basin and steam up the mirror. After cleaning up, she stared at her foggy reflection in the mirror until her eyes unfocused.

"Why am I so afraid?"

No extreme emotion of any kind should affect her like this. Without thinking, she reached up with one thin finger and traced the ancient rune for binding into fog. Becoming bound was supposed to ensure that that part of her humanity was sealed away. Who wanted an Icon, with all their unimaginable power, to have human foibles? Binding an Icon to the land made them incorruptible, and safe from making irrational judgments.

Brining an outsider, a Chosen into Waterwall. Had that been sane? Had she acted out of fear, instead of the calm she was supposed to embody?

Devastating implications made her hands shake even more, wiping away the rune, leaving only a small, frightened face in the mirror.

"Don't panic. Nothing is certain yet." The Icon took another breath and winced. Pain throbbed along her back and lower abdomen. It was time for another dose of medicine. Before she could turn back to her room, the air changed, became icy in the way of winter, so that her breath was visible.

Astonished, the Icon chafed her arms and stared as the hot water sizzled before turning to ice.

"By every saint..."

Nadir crashed through the door, howling when he didn't find her at once.

"I'm here!"

He reared up and lunched toward her, in his dexterous claws her ceremonial knife gleamed. She took it from him and nicked her littlest finger. The shallow cut she made dripped dark, cold blood.

"Hurry," he said. "You have to hurry, my Icon! Your Sentinel is at the door!"

Nadir lunged again, and this time he used his dexterous claws to grasp her arm and pull her forward, towards the door.

"Your veils, unless you want him to see your skin!"

Galvanized into action the Icon leapt forward, stumbling over to the heap of fabric on the chair beside her bed. It took her shaking hands two tries before she could set the pins, the fabric floated over her face in a crooked mess, but it would do. She pulled on her gloves and made her way to the door. Blood from her wound would soak through the material, but there was no time to bandage it.