The Blessing That Broke

bronze dedication-panel, Caer Vallen, deep hall; the effaced portions are gouged, not weathered

A dedication panel effaced almost to nothing in the deep halls of Caer Vallen — the Imperator's blessing on the great work, in which the surviving words say 'lend' and 'sustain' and 'restore,' and the chiselled-out gap after them says everything the survivors could not bear to leave standing.

…by the hand and seal of CORREN VAEL, Imperator, in witness of the Sky-Wrights' great LENDING, that the tired god be SUSTAINED and the world's making held firm against the lean season now upon us; that what the Wright gave freely be given back to him tenfold by the art of ————

[here the metal is cut away, a hand's breadth, down to raw scrap]

————and the Imperator did bless it, and set his word upon it, that no age hereafter should say the Sky-Wrights worked without leave of the throne. Let it be known that the throne consented. Let it be known whose seal is upon the ——

[the remainder gouged out entirely; a single later mark scratched in the bare metal, a downward stroke, as though someone stood here long after and drew a line pointing down into the dark]