Luminous

49 - The Chough's Beak

Meya hoisted her aching buttocks up to the topmost terrace of the Falls. Earlier climbers had formed two loose, ragged circles around the glinting statue, their clothes fluttering gingerly in the hushed murmurs and light breeze.

Meya spotted a shock of curly black hair to the right. Tightening her grip on Lady Agnes's hand, she tiptoed along the edge of the terrace until she came up on Little Lord Frenix and Lady Amara in their colorful masks, and Lady Heloise. Like the rest of the gathering, they were staring, transfixed, at the chough statue. Its head was partially obscured by the tousled hair of the tallest men, its polished jet facets flashed fiercely in the high noon sunshine. The jewel in its beak emitted a familiar, acid-green glow.

A sense of foreboding stirred in the back of her mind. Meya tore her eyes away, glancing between Frenix and Heloise in amusement.

"Haven't you said you'd race to the top and down, your graces?"

Amara whipped around for a blink then turned back to the statue, her plump wee fingers twisting deeper into Heloise's chemise. Frantic whispers slithered back and forth between fellow strangers. Horror and disgust gushed through the metal grille over their mouths, flavored by their various accents.

"Whose is tha'?"

"What in ze zree lands are zey zinking?"

"Horrid taste of decor!"

"Musta been fairly recent. Dun recall seein' nuthin' last year."

Meya scoured the crowd, trying to pinpoint the source of each piece of gossip. A shadow swooped over the terrace from a cloud that had drifted before the sun. Agnes snatched her arm.

"Oh, Goodly Freda! The beak! In the beak!" She gasped, jabbing a trembling finger at the statue. Meya peered up at the troublesome sculpture once more. This time, the sight knocked her knees from beneath her like a hammer whack.

The sun's blinding white glare had been blotted out, revealing a metallic sphere rippling with rainbow shimmers and marked with intricate carvings. At the front face of the ball was a sliver of white, almond-shaped sclera. And, in the center, a ring of glowing green iris, with a heart of shiny black nothingness. Meya thought for a second she was staring at her own eye.

That was a Greeneye's eye—a dragon's eye. Taken from a Greeneye. Dead or alive, she didn't know. By force or willing, she was sure it was the former. Simply to be slotted into a statue, like a fallen enemy's head on display.

Fury, grief and humiliation bled from her heart into her blood, like poison pumped into her limbs then her fingertips. It spread into her stomach and her head, stirring the nausea at bay. Her feet faltered under the weight of her head. Meya barely felt Agnes's hands on her arms, keeping her from plummeting to the rocks below.

"Tis a gum farmer's boy, guardsman here's sayin'."

A tourist man nearby offered his two latts to the pool of folk wisdom. As faces turned to his, he motioned towards a burly man a little way away. Judging from the light-brown skin around his mouth, he was a Jaisian local, concealed in the signature black Jaise cloak. He shook his head, sighing through the metal grille on his mask.

"Poor boy. His rotten father lost big at the gamble-house. Owed the landlord here all his worth, so he pawned off his son's eye."

Gasps rented the air. A petite Aquarian woman with olive skin and straight black hair in a pinned bun raised her shaking fist.

"Greeneye or not, this is outrageous!" She cried, "I wouldn't sell the smallest toe of my girls, no conditions! I say that father goes straight to the Lake!"