The High Mage was not happy. Anything with preserving magic won’t fall apart or wear away on its own, but it can be taken down. The last thing he wanted to do was mess with the foundation.
Jaki said they weren’t destroying the foundation entirely, so it wouldn’t compromise the Temple itself. He got several men in there with tools, and while Lumi sat in the High Mage’s house to warm up, feed Jacqueline, and eat something himself, they started removing the stone tiles.
The High Mage wore an expression as if Jaki had taken a dump on the altar. It had taken quite a lot of insistence and a reminder of who was the Crown Prince there.
The workers pried up the top stones to lay them aside with little trouble. The stone underneath the tiles was a darker color. Mortar dust was swept up as the men continued their work. When one near the border was lifted, Jaki hurried over to see.
Lumi was right. The design would have been more pleasing if the text had been carved higher with the border surrounding all four sides. As the men sweated, grunted, and cleared away more of the stone, new words were revealed.
Jaki ran to fetch Lumi and take Jacqueline in the sling for a bit. They both stood and watched as another stanza was slowly revealed. The men worked faster, spurred on by the sight of something hidden from all eyes for so long, and even the High Mage didn’t look so nasty about the state of his Temple. Sincethe foundation stones were overlapped, more had to be removed than he initially planned on. When it grew dark, lanterns were brought.
Jaki had kept reading each new line that appeared over and over while he tried to figure it out. Once the bottom border was revealed, he was able to read the entirety.
And when the fairies saw the beauty of the white lands,
The sky that could turn from clear blue to grey,
And the glittering flakes that rained down like blessings from Elira’s hands,
The fairies wanted to stay.
And when our Goddess Elira came with a blessing to grant,
The fairies saw the bed of white roses and the crown of gold,
And the gift of love, children, and the ability to plant,
The fairies knew they could thrive in the land of cold.
“One man
One crown
One bud
One clan
If you dare to deign
My commands,
Then my blessing will not remain,
And death will ravage these lands.”
The gift of life for the land
So the region would eternally stand?
The lack of something to pass on
So the line will always have a new dawn?
“For your line to remain in bloom,
The gift must go with you in your tomb,
For other rulers, the opposite is true,
