Sinakhai - Andromeda Fields (Storybook Version)

Описание: We reached the bridge in the evening, an iron rib over a trench so black it swallowed the lamps. Behind us lay the exiled zones with their salt gardens. Ahead rose the Clockwork City, faces tilted to count us. The span thrummed. Jun said nothing. Some crossings dislike speech.

Midway, the wind changed. It smelled of old candles. Cables sang. I touched the velvet case beneath my coat. The Aetherial starflower waited, near black and cold as sea glass. It listens when I go quiet.

A Light Field kept station at the far anchor, tall and oval, beautiful and impassable. It invited and refused in one gesture. We bowed and walked along its border like guests in a room where nothing may be moved.

Stone ended. Our boots found a surface darker than sky, firmer than moss, a floor that kept no prints. Gold opened under each step. Flowers lit like coins, their thin crystal stems holding small flames that rose and vanished into the deep, dark roof of the world. Above us, there was no sky, only depth. We had entered a bell of shadow with a golden chime for a floor.

This was the Andromeda Fields. They do not appear to be fields until you move. With each step, a path wrote itself in petals, then closed behind us, practical and unafraid. The City ticked behind us. The exile streets fell still.

The blooms sang, fine glass touches never in unison. When we disturbed them, the tones rearranged, a soft rehearsal. Sometimes a Dreamfold crossed the dark floor, clear heat over cold stone. Where it passed, the gold deepened, and the stems stood straighter. Nothing broke. Dreamfolds harm nothing.

Maps claim the crystal sleeps in a far corner. The Fields have no corners, the way ink desires. They have attention. Near the bridge, the flowers watched our ankles and forgave clumsy steps. Deeper in, they watched hands, and deeper still, they watched breath, as if pollen held opinions about promises. I counted rests between heartbeats and chose the quietest direction.

We walked until the gold thinned. Here and there, the light stepped back, leaving small archipelagos of dark, as if constellations had lifted from the floor. Jun peered into one gap and found more depth, then a patient shine far below, lake-water light under midnight glass. He reached toward it, and the nearest blooms leaned away, unwilling to be startled.

There is no road to the crystal. There is only a memory you have not made yet. I learned that when the hum shaped itself into the rhythm of the registry hall on the day I did not cross my name out. The habit of leaving lifted. In that brief moment, the gold leveled into a pale avenue only I could see. Jun did not question. We followed the road that was not there, and it held.

The crystal rose from the dark, a tower the color of poured honey. Not as large as palaces are large. Large, like the word always, a word I avoid in daylight. The flowers halted a measured stride away and circled it as supplicants circle a spring. Light moved inside in a pulse that matched every sixth breath. I counted twice, then stopped.

We did not speak the sleeper’s name. In these Fields, names write contracts. The Sarrata Maxima lay with eyes closed and hands folded, listening like rock to tide, her sleep meant to be forever. A crown waited beside her rather than on her head. Between us and the crystal hung a thin veil of radiance, cousin to the Light Fields. It greeted us and kept us at the exact distance where admiration does not trespass. I thanked the law that devised such a distance.

I opened the case. The starflower drank the gold and refused to change, remaining near black and still cold. I lowered it until the stem almost kissed the floor. The petals did not flare. They listened. I asked for silence, not a blessing. Silence is the only safe gift in a room like this.

We stood a while. The pulse kept its calm arithmetic. Far off, a Light Field showed itself and receded, a white boat on a black sea. The City’s clocks could not reach us. The Fields did not love or judge. They accepted that we had come and would leave.

On the way back, the gold brightened for three minutes. We did not speak of it. At the bridge, the waiting Field inclined again, courteous and impassable. We walked along its edge and thanked it with small bows. The trench swallowed the last petal light. Behind us, the crystal kept breathing. Ahea,d the City prepared to count.

I closed the case over the starflower. Its cold lingered in my palm. Some sleeps are promises, not losses. Some places called lost are only the world’s way of keeping sacred things until the hour that requires them. If that hour never arrives, the keeping still matters. I do not know which fate belongs to the Sarrata Maxima. The Andromeda Fields know. They will not say.