It was Jolin, her face suffused with joy. On one side of her was Doranna, on the other side was Lilette. Doranna looked determined and tired. Lilette found it harder to read the expression on her own face—sadness and trepidation, perhaps. It was a reflection of last night. But this sculpture was much older than that. Lichen grew along the folds of their clothes, and the sun and rain had bleached the raised parts, while the reliefs were darker.
Breathing hard, Lilette gaze traveled to the next grouping. A single woman with three faces. The closest one was looking back, her face buried in her weeping hands. The middle face gazed serenely over the island. The one on the right glared at a wounded figure cowering before her. In her hand, she held a knife that dripped into a pool of blood at her feet.
“You should stand back.”
Lilette had been so absorbed in studying the sculpture that the voice made her jump. A little farther on, Bethel stood flush with the cliffs, as if she was listening to secrets the stones whispered. Her black cloak made her nearly indistinguishable from the rocks.
Lilette scrambled over the scree toward her. “You knew about last night.” Her breath turned white in the cool morning air. “How could you have known?”
Bethel didn’t open her eyes. “The stone told me. Now go behind the largest tree. I can’t always predict where the scree will fall.”
Lilette knew what was coming. She was about to watch Bethel create the sculptures, see firsthand the source of the crashing sounds that regularly shattered the island’s routine.
Lilette found the tree Bethel meant and stumbled behind it. Tucked safely behind the buttress roots, she peered out and had the sense she was witnessing something magnificent—something no one in the history of the world had ever seen before.
Bethel spent a few more silent minutes pressed against the rock. “There.” She backed up behind a tree. Her eyes closed as if in concentration, she sang,
I reveal what lies hidden beneath,
Waiting too for the song of release.
Rocks and stone,
I’ve come to hone.
Keepers of old,
Show us our mold.
A thousand cracks filled the air like the sound of a hurricane, only louder and deeper. A fracture rent the rock, and a whole side of the cliff collapsed. Rocks tumbled down, dust billowing outward.
Lilette buried her face in the smooth bark of the tree, her fingers white as she pressed her fists into her ears to block out the deafening noise as the ground rumbled beneath her. When the world finally stilled, she peeked around the roots. The air was choked with dust that blocked her view. Coughing, she pulled her collar over her mouth and tried to take shallow breaths.
Bethel climbed over the rubble, her eyes glued to the cliff’s face. Stepping cautiously up beside her, Lilette sang softly for the damp wind. The air cleared, revealing the cliffs. Her eyes went as round as the jumble of stones at the cliffs’ base. The side had collapsed, exposing the lower half of a woman. Her feet dangled as if she floated in the air. But it was her clothing that made Lilette’s heart stutter in her chest. The image wore slippers and a tunic with loose trousers, the patterns shown by subtle depressions in the stone.
Bethel reached out and pulled Lilette next to her. “Stay close.”
Lilette sang again. More of the cliffs collapsed, revealing part of a face and releasing another cloud of dust. She impatiently sang the dust away.
Bethel’s voice joined hers. Though their songs were different, the melodies enhanced one another. More of the cliff collapsed, revealing a woman’s face. Lilette sat down hard, rocks bruising her backside.
It was her. The woman floating in the air was her. Her arms were thrown back, tears etching grooves down her cheeks. Her eyes looked up at the sky as if to ask how it could have come to this. How the world could ask so much. Lilette knew this was her future, and her soul ached with dread. She forgot all about Bethel until the older woman sat beside her.
“The stone told you this—that this is my future?” Lilette asked.
Bethel gestured to the sculpture of the three-faced woman. “It’s recorded in every history book ever written. At a civilization’s peak, the great and mighty destroy themselves.”
Lilette swallowed a sob. “No.”
Bethel’s eyes were sad. “The moment I touched the amber, I realized it was meant to save you. You must take a piece. Another you must give to a guardian—one who has proven himself true to the end. That way, he will be able to find you when no one else can.”
“I don’t know how you did this.” Lilette motioned to the cliffs. “Maybe you sang for the lichen, or have some way of aging the rock face like that.”