A Word Returned

By morning, the wind had packed snow into the seams of the ridge trail. Aren scraped it away with the edge of his boot and found the pale route beneath, thin as a line drawn in chalk. Seraphine stood a few paces ahead, studying the slope where the trail bent out of sight.

“Still there?” she asked.

He looked back toward the mountain. The passage to the fourth station was hidden behind two ridges of stone. “The route is.”

“That wasn’t what I meant.”

Aren brushed snow from his sleeve. He had listened through the night for a signal, though there was no reason to expect one so soon. “No word.”

Seraphine nodded and started uphill. She didn’t tell him to stop hoping. He was grateful for that.

They followed the pale seam along the ridge, sharing the pack between them. The sled and most of their supplies were behind them now. What remained dragged at Aren’s shoulders, and the cold made the fingers of his left hand clumsy. He kept that hand tucked inside his coat. The black mark along his palm had been quiet since they left the last station, but he still noticed when it brushed the cloth.

At midday, the slope dipped into a narrow bowl sheltered from the wind. Seven upright stones stood there, staggered in a shallow arc. They were shorter than the station pillars they had seen before, and each bore a cut running down its face. The pale route passed between them and ended at a flat rock in the center.

Seraphine crouched beside the nearest stone. “This is the fifth.”

“Do the marks tell us what it does?”

“Not yet.” She cleared snow from the carved line. “They’ve been worn down. This one might mean ‘bearing,’ or ‘carrying.’ The next could be a direction, but the top is gone.”

Aren set down the pack. The station’s central stone was scored by seven shallow grooves that ran outward to the standing stones. A faint light rested in the groove pointing back the way they had come.

He knelt. “Could it carry another report?”

“Maybe.” Seraphine looked from the groove to the stones. “We should see whether it’s waiting for a word before we give it one.”

They searched the station together. Seraphine traced the cuts with her fingertips, and Aren cleared ice from the edges of the center stone. Along the western side, they found a small inscription, mostly hidden beneath a skin of frost. Seraphine warmed it with her breath and read slowly.

“‘A word sent home may be met by a word returning.’” She paused. “That’s clearer than the rest.”

Aren looked at the groove lit behind them. “A reply?”