Chapter Five: The Lake That Remembers
262 Words
The second Starfall Site lay at the bottom of Lake Miravel, which was said to remember everything that had ever been reflected in its surface — every face, every storm, every passing bird.
Lyra stood at the shore and stared into the water, which showed her not the grey sky above but a hundred different skies — sunny days, starlit nights, dawns in colors she had no names for.
"I can't breathe underwater," she said.
"You can if you believe you can," said Solenne.
"That seems like a dangerous thing to test."
Solenne flicked her feathery tail. "Fortunately, I have something better than belief." She pressed her cold nose to Lyra's hand and breathed out a small puff of silver light, which wound itself around Lyra's neck like a scarf. "Sky-breath. It will last long enough."
Lyra waded in. The lake was shockingly cold. But she found she could breathe — the silver light warming the water around her face into something soft and breathable as she sank deeper.
The lake bottom was a garden of crystal and bone — old shipwrecks, forgotten coins, stones carved with messages in languages long dead. And at the center, a second seal, green with age and half-buried in silt.
She pressed her hand to it. The water around the seal swirled gold. The c***k sealed shut.
When Lyra broke the surface, gasping and soaking wet, the lake behind her was perfectly, beautifully still — and for just a moment, it showed her a reflection of the night sky, every star burning bright and clear.
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- Writer
