Lucien stopped speaking. Silence engulfing them both, he stared at her for a long time, then going to the covered statue, he whisked the cloth away, and unveiled the alabaster stone. Glancing at it for a few seconds, he nodded to Dana, and then walked out of the room.
The sculpture before her was the same statue that had bore the marks of Lucien’s strong arm defacing the work of what he created. And yet it was a different piece that stood before her than the one that she accidentally discovered that day. There was just one woman now emerging from the rock, just Dana. The part that had been Ariel was behind her in ruins, the ruins themselves sculpted to look like so much forgotten debris. The naked figure of Dana appeared to rise out of the devastation with a remarkable strength. Her face
