Failure is like Frog who wished that she, like a tree, would lose her green in autumn.
—COLLECTED FOLKTALES
Jasminda’s eyelids felt at least three times their normal weight. The last thing she remembered was the breath leaving her lungs as Jack’s weight crushed her. Now, the pressure on her chest was gone. She opened her eyes and found Jack two paces away, still out cold. And the world around her had changed.
When they had entered the stone circle, the storm still raged outside its boundaries. But now, she had been transported into a different season altogether. Beyond the pillars, the sun was up, the weather serene. The outside now matched the inside of the circle.
She sat up and looked again at Jack, sprawled beside her. In his open palm lay the map stone. That was odd. She was sure he hadn’t been holding it when they entered the circle.
She looked around again and gasped, scrambling backward at the sight of a hooded figure standing across the shattered glass from them. Only now, the glass was whole again, like it hadn’t burst apart and sliced her. Her fingers no longer stung from the cuts, and there was no blood slicking her palms.
“Who are you?” she called out.
The figure, covered head to toe in a dark cloak, walked around toward Jasminda. She stood her ground, not wanting to move farther from Jack’s vulnerable form.
The cloaked person’s arms rose to remove the hood, and Jasminda’s chest contracted. Standing before her was a woman, a Lagrimari woman. Her dark hair was pulled back into a thick braid, and her eyes, slightly downturned at the corners, gave her a sad look.
She peered in Jasminda’s general direction, but the woman was looking through her. Jasminda turned—there was no one else there besides her and Jack.
The sad woman opened her mouth and spoke, shocking Jasminda even more. “You are here for the cornerstone.” Her voice had a slight echo to it, a distant quality, though the woman stood only a few paces away. “My father built the Mantle. When he died, protecting it fell to me. Father told me that one day there would be seekers. Either to destroy the barrier or to strengthen it. You must prove which you are before the cornerstone may be revealed.”
The woman clasped her hands in front of her. “The test is simple. Return the map to the center of the circle.”
Confusion furrowed Jasminda’s brow. “Return?” She took another look at the odd patch of glass. It was, perhaps, four paces across. But once again, it had changed. Now in the very middle, a chunk was missing. The irregular shape of what was left behind matched that of the map exactly, it was a perfect fit.
“That’s all I have to do?” She looked back over her shoulder, but the woman had disappeared.
The test was simple indeed, though a flutter of apprehension sped her heartbeat. Jack still hadn’t awoken; concern for him pummeled her, but she knew what his priority was. With a deep breath, she removed the map stone from his palm, gripping it as gingerly as she would a dead rodent.
To get to the center of the glass, she would have to walk across it—the place where the map fit was too far to reach from outside. But the last time they’d touched it, the glass had shattered.
Jasminda kneeled, feeling on the ground for a pebble or stone. Finding one, she tossed it onto the dark brown glossy surface. It fell with a thunk, but the glass held.
She rose and tentatively placed a toe at the very edge of the glass and pressed her weight. It still held, giving no indication of being brittle or delicate at all.
Her heart beating double time, she stepped fully onto the surface. It bore her weight without a groan of complaint and felt just as solid as the ground. When she looked up, her breath caught in her chest.
A different woman stood just in front of her, one she hadn’t seen in nearly seven long years. Jasminda’s throat thickened. Tears bit her eyes. “Mama?”
Eminette Zinadeel smiled sweetly, but looked off at an angle, staring into the distance. Her auburn hair held streaks of gold. A dusting of freckles lay scattered across her nose. Their pattern was as familiar to Jasminda as her own face.
“Mama!” She reached out to embrace her, but her mother flinched back. Eminette turned to regard her daughter with empty eyes.
“You could have saved me.”
“What?” The accusation in her mother’s gaze was an arrow through Jasminda’s flesh.
“How did you not know? The sickness inside me. How did you not sense it?”
Jasminda blinked through freely flowing tears. “I-I’m sorry, Mama. I didn’t know. My Song isn’t—”
“Your Song is weak. If you were stronger, you could have saved me.”
A sob yanked itself from Jasminda’s chest. In the back of her mind, a thought whispered that Papa hadn’t sensed Mama’s illness, either, and his Song had been much stronger than hers. But most of her acknowledged that her mother was right. If Jasminda had only been stronger, had only worked harder at learning Earthsong, she would have known.
Mama shook her head bitterly and faded away.
“No!” Jasminda fell to her knees; her bones shook from the impact with the glass. She could not catch her breath. Her lungs spasmed, fighting for air.
The map stung her fist. She choked down her grief. The center of the circle was so close, just another two steps. Though this simple test might be the end of her.
She closed her eyes and steadied her breath.
“Jasminda?”
She looked up. Her papa stood just in front of her, the twins on either side. She fell back, taking them all in.
“Papa? Roshon? Varten?” Neither the boys nor her father had changed. The twins were identical except for their expressions. Roshon scowled down at her, and Varten shook his head. Her father’s heavy eyes echoed the boys’ disappointment.
“If you had come with us that day, you could have saved us,” Papa said.
Roshon crossed his arms. “You never wanted to go to town, always begging off, afraid of the townsfolk.”
Varten pursed his lips and didn’t speak.
Jasminda’s stomach lurched, threatening to empty itself. “B-but how could I have saved you?”
“I never thought I’d raised a coward, Jasminda.” Papa’s voice cut through to her core.
She tried to tell herself this was the magic, the test, none of it was real. But there they stood, and they looked so real. Not a hair on their head had changed. They blurred from her tears.
Jasminda tucked her chin to her chest and crawled forward, pushing through the place where they stood. Their legs faded away into mist, and although part of her was relieved, a larger part would have endured anything—would have gladly accepted their blame, if only they had been real.
She stretched out her hand for the center of the circle. It was only an arm’s length away. It should have been easy to reach, but her whole body had turned leaden.
A heavy foot nearly stomped on her wrist. She looked up yet again to find the county constable towering over her. The smell of smoke filled her nostrils.
“That fine young couple has big plans for that cabin. They don’t mind rebuilding. Even if the thing hadn’t burned, they would have torn it down and started over. Said it was too rustic for them.” The red-faced man gave a deep belly laugh before piercing her with his gaze.
“A shame you couldn’t hold onto your family’s legacy. Now, not only is it up in smoke, not a chicken or goat will remain once these new homesteaders get their way.” He shook his head and adjusted his cap. “Ah, well, that’s progress, innit?”
Jasminda’s head dropped, and all the fight went out of her. The farm lost? The cabin torn down instead of being rebuilt? She shook in agony as the words of her family and the constable rained down on her like an avalanche. Her limbs were too heavy to move. She was locked in place as if she had turned to stone. Perhaps she would become one of the pillars that guarded this place.
Try as she might to take one more step, she couldn’t do it.
Her fingers were pried open, and the map was removed from her hand.
She opened her eyes to find Jack, red eyed and red faced, but determined, lurch forward on his hands and knees and drop the small stone into place.
As soon as it settled into the spot of its origin, the ground began to vibrate. An invisible force pushed her back onto the grass as the entire interior of the stone circle shimmered and shifted. A giant red obelisk popped into existence where the map stone had lain.
Jack crouched next to her. His eyes slowly rose to meet hers. He scrubbed away the tears tracking his cheeks.
What had he seen? Whatever it was, it seemed no less harrowing than her own test, only Jack had passed.
The cornerstone rose before them, radiating power.
Jack’s golden gaze dimmed. His breathing stuttered, and his eyes rolled up into his head. Blood gushed from one of his nostrils.
“Jack?” Jasminda reached for him, but he fell to the side, unconscious. Fear drummed a cadence inside her chest. She could not heal Jack and have any hope of fixing the cornerstone.
Though it tore at her heart, she swallowed and focused her attention on the obelisk. Her breathing had still not returned to normal, so it took several tries before she could successfully connect to Earthsong. The raging river of power felt wild, rough, and choppy.
She filled her Song to its limited capacity and felt for the magic of the cornerstone. A power ancient and unfamiliar met her. The spell was a tangled webbing of complex pieces, far beyond her skill level.
She could see cracks in the intricate latticework of energy, but trying to fill them would be like mortaring a brick wall with twig and a bit of mud. She was just too weak. She had the absurd desire to laugh.
The voices of her family echoed in her head. She swatted them away, but they persisted.
“It’s not just me,” she muttered aloud as if their apparitions were still before her. “No Singer alive could repair this spell.” The magic was hundreds of years old. Papa had told her the ancient Singers must have had godlike powers to create the Mantle. And yet slivers of doubt pierced her.
She poured her Song into the attempt, feeling her way around the spell, trying to patch even one crack. She drained herself to no effect. The old man who’d given Jack the map must have been delusional. Or was she simply the wrong Singer for the job?
She shivered, suddenly cold. No longer able to hold on to Earthsong, she opened her eyes to find swirling eddies of snow had invaded the protection of the pillars. The remaining grass shriveled before her eyes as the storm breached the circle.
What had happened? How had the magic failed? She drew her coat tighter and bent to Jack. He was still breathing, but his injuries had been severe, and the climb up the mountain had only worsened them.
She leaned her head to his chest to find his heartbeat slow, his body temperature scarily low. She lay across his body to try to warm him, but it looked more and more like he would die on this mountain. Likely, they both would.
Tears froze on her face. She squeezed her lids shut against the pain of defeat in so many areas.
Pins and needles skittered across her skin, alternating between tiny jabs of pain and numbness. The evil presence lurking in the storm felt even nearer. She stared up at the obelisk as hope fled.
The ground shook—aftershocks of the cornerstone’s appearance? But the gentle vibrations increased in intensity. The rattling grew until the snow bounced and the earth groaned in complaint. Violent, shattering shakes rattled the ridge where the circle stood. The stone columns trembled and crumbled as the shaking grew stronger. Large chunks fell away, barely missing where Jasminda lay protecting Jack with her body. Beneath them, cracks appeared in the earth.
She gripped Jack tight, whispering the Promise of the Queen through stammering lips. “While She sleeps this promise keep; That She dream of us while for Her we weep; May She comfort, counsel, guard, and guide; Those whose love will never die; And when Her betrayer pays for his lies; And finally the World After occupies; May love’s true Song with Her remain; And awaken Her that She may rule again.”
What was left of the disintegrating columns swayed and tilted. Two of them crashed into the obelisk. They tore through the gleaming red stone. The other pillars followed suit, and rocks tumbled down from somewhere above. They all fell, pounding the ancient artifact into powder until no trace remained.
The ground opened up where the columns had once stood.
Jasminda had repeated the prayer twice through, her words a mere whisper at the end, when the earth beneath her fell away, leaving her clutching Jack’s limp form as they tumbled down the mountain.