The sun is rising when I’m sure the runes are right. I draw the final symbol—my symbol—and lay my hand over the dusty board. The runes flash. The thread tugs at my chest like it will rip me open, and I cry out through my teeth. It pulls and aches, but then it—no, they unwind, like two halves of a severed whole. I feel amputated, empty, bleeding, but I make myself stand. I make myself walk, leaving yet another part of me to die on that hard wooden floor.
At Steam and City Works, Erich looks surprised to see me this early.
“When I said impossible....” I limp past him, towards my bare desk. “I meant for someone who wasn’t a genius. I’ll make it work.”
With those words, I anchor myself to my small study and my drafty, leaking quarters. The favors I’ve curried from powerful men will vanish. I will live and die at Steam and City Works. So I spread my books and my pages across my desk and hang my chalkboard on the wall.
Silence fills my head where Adalia used to be. I wonder what’s she’s doing and where in the city she is now. For the first time, I don’t know. I can only hope that, after so long stumbling over what we left behind, leashed to the past by a heart thread, she will finally find herself, whoever that may be.
With chalk in my clumsy fingers, I draw Jeralt’s equation. From it, all of my research shall grow.
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In addition to writing, Jeff Isacksen works as a personal trainer, plays too many video games, and practices Krav Maga incessantly. His first reader is always his infinitely supportive wife and fellow writer, Lauren Liebowitz, without whom he never would have put his ideas to the page.
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COVER ART
“Marching Off,” by Maciej Wojtala
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1076
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
Copyright © 2013 Firkin Press