Why Sun Shields Face East — At first light, the crystal valley hummed like a glass cup, and Fenna planted her boots beside the lion-gate before anyone else arrived. Read the full story →
At first light, the crystal valley hummed like a glass cup, and Fenna planted her boots beside the lion-gate before anyone else arrived. She wanted the old sentinels to stop calling her “borrowed,” so she polished her sun shield until the cold rim squeaked under her sleeve. Beside her, the winged lion Arvo breathed warm, grassy breaths over the stones.
The valley’s obelisk should have caught the sunrise and opened the safe road. Instead it stayed dark. Fenna lifted her eagle staff, but its carved beak clicked strangely, tik-tik, as if pecking from the inside. “What are you hiding?” she whispered. Nobody had ever searched the eagle’s hollow eye; staffs were for holding, not questioning. Fenna pressed the tiny notch with her thumb, and a dawnseed rolled out, no bigger than a pea, smelling of rain on warm rock.
Arvo lowered his proud head. Fenna set the seed in the center of her shield, and golden light poured eastward into the obelisk. The road opened with a soft sigh, and the sentinels came quietly to stand around her. Ever since, every sun shield in the crystal valley faces east at morning watch, and if you trace Fenna’s shield, you may find where the first dawnseed shone at first light.
