10
FENELLA
Fenella settled deeper into the plush sofa, acutely aware of the weight of expectation from every corner of Kalugal's living room. The figurine sat on the coffee table before them, its pale stone surface catching the light from the skylights above, the glow mimicking the goddess's but not quite.
Such a small thing to carry such enormous hope.
The last time she'd attempted psychometry with Kyra and Jasmine bolstering her ability, the visions had hit her like a freight train. She wasn't eager for a repeat performance, especially not with an audience of immortal royalty watching her every move.
"We should sit closer together and hold hands," Jasmine suggested, scooting towards Kyra. "We need physical contact with each other."
Fenella moved in from the other side as Kyra's hand rose to touch her amber pendant. "This is like a supernatural séance," Fenella muttered, then caught Din's encouraging look fromwhere he was sitting in one of Kalugal's fancy chairs that didn't look comfortable.
All these modern pieces were mainly designed to look good. Function was a secondary consideration.
Jasmine chuckled. "I wouldn't call it a séance. We're not trying to contact spirits. It's just reading the echoes left behind in the stone."
"Right. Echoes." Fenella wiped her palms on her pants, annoyed at herself for being nervous. She'd faced down drunken patrons, survived decades on the run, endured unspeakable abuse, and here she was, intimidated by what secrets a tiny statue might hold. "Let's get on with it then."
Jasmine carefully lifted the figurine and handed it to Fenella, who cradled it in her left hand while extending her right toward Kyra. "Ready when you are."
Kyra took her offered hand, and Fenella noted how steady and warm Kyra's hand was compared to her own slightly clammy palm.
With Fenella in the center and Kyra and Jasmine flanking her, the three of them focused inwards and…nothing happened.
"Should we close our eyes?" Kyra asked.
"It might help with focus," Jasmine agreed.
Fenella nodded, though the idea of blocking off sensory input while surrounded by people made her even more nervous than she already was. It went against the survival instinct she'd honed over fifty years of running.
She had to remind herself that she was among friends and had nothing to fear. Din was there, her newly discovered cousins were beside her, and the Clan Mother herself sat across from them, radiating the kind of power that no enemy would be stupid enough to underestimate.
There was no safer place on the face of the Earth for her. She could do this.
"Alright." Fenella forced her eyes shut. "Here goes nothing."
At first, there was only darkness behind her eyelids, the sound of her own breathing, and the small sounds everyone around her was making—the soft rustle of fabric as someone shifted position, and the faint whir of air conditioning.
Still, nothing was coming through.
The figurine might as well have been mass-produced in China for all the psychic impression it was giving off.
"I'm not getting anything," she started to say when Jasmine's hand tightened around hers.
"Give it a moment," Jasmine murmured. "Sometimes it takes time to?—"
The vision slammed into Fenella with the force of a battering ram. One moment she was sitting on a comfortable sofa in Kalugal's underground mansion, and the next she was somewhere else entirely, seeing through eyes that weren't her own.
A workshop. Small, cramped, with stone dust dancing in shafts of sunlight streaming through a single window. The air tasted dry and gritty, carrying the sharp tang of worked stone and the underlying sweetness of wood shavings. Through the borrowedeyes, Fenella saw hands—not her own, but weathered and strong, marked with the countless small scars that came from years of working with tools on wood and stone.
The carver.
She was experiencing his memories, seeing through his eyes as he worked.
The figurine took shape slowly under his patient hands, each stroke of the chisel deliberate and careful. This wasn't his usual medium—Fenella could feel his slight uncertainty with the stone, the way he had to adjust his technique from the wood he typically worked with. But there was something driving him, a compulsion that went beyond a simple task of producing something pretty that people would pay to own.
His thoughts came to her not in words she could understand—the language was unfamiliar to her—but in impressions and emotions that transcended linguistic barriers.
