Chapter 11
to be the stone
Earlier—before the dark took the sky—Callie had found Solrien in her usual quiet corner of the apartment, hovering like a thought that refused to leave.
“Are you up for a road trip?” Callie asked, trying for casual and failing.
Solrien’s eyes narrowed in immediate understanding. “You mean you need air?” she said. “And ground. And a place you can break without witnesses.”
Callie’s laugh came out thin. “Also, I’m running out of…me.”
“Then come,” Solrien said simply. “We’ll train until your body complains, and then we’ll train through the complaint.”
The training circle shimmered faintly in the night air, the measured salt lines dulled by early morning dew. Solrien stood across from Callie, naked and barefoot—an aurora made into a woman, all green light and edges that didn’t quite commit unless she wanted them to. When she moved, the air shimmered as if reality had to decide whether to let her pass.
Sometimes she was only light. Sometimes she could have mass. Callie never knew which version she’d get until Solrien chose. All of them had presence.
“Ah. Naked,” Callie said, blinking once. “I forgot. So it’s a mental obstacle course as well?” Different rules, Callie thought. Wildly—unruly different rules.
Solrien didn’t smile.
Callie knelt in the dirt, breathing hard. Her arm throbbed from the last round of sparring, and Solrien had tagged her hard. Exhausted, yes—and carrying that brittle edge that came when stress stopped being temporary and started becoming a climate. Her eyes flared with something more complicated than pain.
Conviction.
“I want…oof… I want to be as powerful as you,” Callie said suddenly.
Solrien, still and tall beneath the moon, tilted her head.
“Do you know what that means?”
Callie laughed once, a dry, broken sound. “It means giving up what I want for what must be. That maybe… maybe I don’t get the happy ending. But Jess does.” She swallowed hard, the words scraping. “Standing,” her shoulders sagged, and she stared down at her hands, flexing her fingers. “If that’s the cost of becoming you, then I’ll pay it.” Callie looked up at Solrien’s glowing form. “Gladly.”
Solrien stepped closer. “Power doesn’t come from longing, Callie. It comes from choosing.” Her voice had the old patience of stone. “Again and again—not always correctly, of course—but relentlessly. To be who the world needs when the moment arrives.”
It was rare for Solrien not to say Callista, but Callie nodded. “Then let me be that.”
A long silence stretched between them. Then Solrien whispered, “You will carry more than I ever did.” Her voice was too quiet, like she wasn’t sure herself.
“What does that mean?”
Solrien’s brow arched, but then she closed her eyes. “A moment, please?” After a deep breath, her image faded, leaving only her torso and arms visible. The flicker wasn’t theatrical. It was fatigue. She placed two fingers on Callie’s sternum, just below her collarbone. “Here. The tether. You feel it already, don’t you?”
Callie inhaled sharply. “I do. The warmth. The strange pulse when I’m around her.” Callie reached to touch Solrien’s fingers, but she drew them back before Callie could make contact. “Maybe from the first day I saw her.”
Solrien’s image flickered again. “One day, when you need it the most, you’ll burn brighter than I ever did. You’ll give her stars.”
Callie blinked, now more concerned with Solrien’s flickering image. “Stars? I haven’t even kissed her yet.” A half-smile tried to live and failed. “Are you being metaphorical, like the earth moving? Are you alright? You’re fading away from me.”
“I’ll rest soon,” Solrien said softly. “My time will end, and yours will begin. Not as my echo, not as me.” Her gaze sharpened, suddenly fierce. “Don’t try to become me, Callista, because I will only slow your momentum.”
Callie frowned. She wasn’t getting it.
“You seek strength, correct?” Solrien had regained her full body image, though it was far less bright. The glow was thinner now, like dawn had already started to steal it.
“Not for me,” Callie said, closing her eyes.
“No,” Solrien said. “You have already chosen.”
Callie’s throat tightened. “Then tell me. If I continue on this path…will I survive it?”
The silence again dragged on. For Callie, it was either no—or a not-how-you-think answer.
“I cannot see that far,” Solrien said at last. “Even stars fall.”
Callie’s hands curled at her sides. Her stomach clenched with the simple violence of it: not an answer, but not a comfort either.
“But I can tell you this: my legacy, Callie.” Solrien’s voice softened, and something old and intimate moved through it. “My love… it carries forward.”
The words hovered unfinished. Not a prophecy but perhaps a seed.
Callie opened her eyes. “That’s it?”
“That’s everything.”
The sigh was long and deep, but Callie let Solrien’s words settle. Low and slowly, into her chest, just beneath the ache she never dared to show Jess. It wasn’t a power she could name. This was much deeper and far older than she could grasp. The words were from ancient times. Not fire or wind or from a conjured spell. Not the kind of strength that cracks stone…
But the kind that becomes it.
Callie’s heart whispered it first, then her lips followed. “Your love carries forward.”
A breath, another heartbeat. “Your love… carries forward.”
Callie’s eyes brimmed, her voice becoming defiant. Over and over, she repeated the phrase until it became her own.
She took a breath and looked at Solrien; Callie’s eyes gleamed with tears that refused to fall, reflecting the soft green glow of Solrien.
Callie’s fist rose in the dawn.
And if her body was running out of gas, then fine—she’d learn to burn something older than fuel.
“My love carries forward.”