THE SECOND CRADLE - BOOK TWO OF THE IRON CRADLE SAGA Chapter 13: CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Managed Expectations

Read chapter 13 of THE SECOND CRADLE - BOOK TWO OF THE IRON CRADLE SAGA by JE PAYNE on NovelPedia.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN ASCENDANCY -- The Keep I couldn't help but marvel at how much nature had done to tear apart the keep. Three hundred years was a long time. I used to think this place was impenetrable. The walls were broken, brought down by years of erosion and weather. The small, trickling creek I'd followed three centuries ago was deeper and wider now. The stone culverts and channels we'd built beneath the causeway had collapsed. We'd built those walls out of hollow-cast stone blocks, each one the size of a city bus. They were clad in copper and hardwood and riveted together. The pyramid above the den had been built the same way. Its smooth, sloped sides were designed to shed anything thrown at the structure. Standing outside the pyramid, I could see where the copper had oxidized and pulled away. The alien hardwood had warped and split, and the forest had sent roots into every seam it could find. The grasslands we'd started in were gone. The forest had followed the creek up and wrapped itself around everything we'd built. "You guys really made all this?" Hannah said as she pulled on the plain-knit top ARi had made for her and handed Yumi back her cloak. "We did," ARi said, "but this isn't what it looked like when we left." "ARi, I think we need to take this conversation inside before anything else shows up. Can you phase those monsters into inventory so they don't attract scavengers?" She waved her hand, and the massive creatures disappeared. She also phased some of the bloodstained ground and debris beneath them. We took turns pushing through the crack in the wall and into the causeway. It was strange to walk across those cobbles. The last time I'd been here, they'd been brand new. The yard had been full of kobolds running drills in the early morning light. That hadn't been so long ago, at least not to me. ARi led us across the courtyard and down the stairs into the den. The smell of three hundred years hit us when we reached the bottom. Damp stone and the remnants of whatever had been living down here in the time we'd been gone. Roots had pushed through where the ceiling had shifted. What was left of the wooden door was still scattered across the floor. ARi had already started before the last of us made it down. I'd watched her do this once before. She carved this space out of the living rock and shaped it into something we could actually live in. I remembered watching her move through it. The walls came together around her. She pulled light and warmth out of bare stone like it was nothing. I hadn't known what I was feeling then. Watching her work now, I understood it well enough. She moved through the den the same way she always had, steady and unhurried. The space came back around her one section at a time. The debris cleared. The lamps along the walls came on. The hearth caught and the fire pushed the damp back where it belonged. The den stopped feeling like a tomb and started feeling like ours again. "I went ahead and started cleaning up in here too," she said without turning around. "You guys don't even want to know what I found crawling around in what was left of our beds." She turned and looked back at Hannah with a smile. "I guess I have to make another room." I watched the look of wonder on Hannah's face, and thought about the first time I'd stood and watched ARi work. The firelight moved with her as she went, the way it always had. She was still beautiful, and it was still mesmerizing to watch. Yumi slowly shook her head. "This just never gets old," she said. Everyone found a spot around the hearth. Tim had already dropped into the chair closest to the fire, arms folded across his chest, watching ARi with the quiet, focused look he got when something was working on him. Everyone except Kyle, who hadn't sat down since we came inside. He was moving along the far wall, and I watched him long enough to know he wasn't just restless. "Kyle, what's on your mind?" He stopped and looked over at me. "I don't understand it