The days passed quickly in Acantha’s abode. Acantha was kind enough to offer Kosta a room and a bed carved from stone, though thankfully she had plenty of cushions and fine cloth to make it more comfortable. It left Kosta wondering who had once claimed the guest room, but he didn’t question his good fortune.

To be honest, Kosta felt more like a guest than an apprentice. While he’d initially expected to spend much of his time performing menial tasks for Acantha (as his father was wont to have him do) and otherwise making her isolated life easier, it turned out that she already had a servant to handle those matters.

He didn’t enjoy the way that the eight foot tall Petranth watched him, though. The construct was carved from a crystal unknown to Kosta, though it appeared to be magical. It was vaguely transparent, though its gemlike flesh glittered in the light and was filled with flecks of white that glimmered like stars within the sapphire matrix.

It was affectionately named ‘Leander’ by Acantha, and she treated the towering golem man more like a pet than a terrifying protector. The creature spent its days steadfastly keeping Acantha’s marble tree home utterly spotless, scaring away the occasional squirrel interested in sniffing around the tree’s limbs, and glaring at Kosta like it was going to smash his head in.

Kosta couldn’t help but shake his head as the crystalline giant, loosely draped in a rainbow-hued chiton that looked as if Acantha had somehow stitched a dozen sheets of different gemstones together, contentedly plucked a pheasant that it had captured.

Leander maintained eye contact with Kosta every time it tore out a feather. It had done the same when it wrung the poor creature’s neck. This giant would likely fetch a fortune on the market as an engine of war. A hundred sword strikes wouldn't even scratch Leander. Power like Headsman Linus’ radiated from the golem.

So no, Kosta was rarely needed for chores. He was happy to help Acantha with whatever she asked, though those occasions were few and far between. Even Leander wasn’t that busy. Acantha was so powerful that most of her desires were fulfilled with but a thought.

Dust fled beneath her grey gaze. A lone spider scuttled away from her bed, then was frozen in a flash of stone. Acantha had affectionately placed it on her nightstand. Roots tugged away from her feet. A thousand little inconveniences made themselves scarce.

Kosta filled his days with sculpting and carving instead. While Acantha had no need of a workshop given her vast power and the nature of her art, she had ample material that Kost was free to use. Acantha was willing to Petrify him new stone when necessary. Hunger filled him the moment he realized that she could manifest different types of stone through the technique.

Imagine! He’d never have to haggle over materials with sharp-tongued merchants again. Kosta would just blink and find himself with the perfect grade of stone. Now that was magic to capture his imagination. That right there would fix a dozen of his problems.

So Kosta spent his days doing what he loved most. He took stone, saw the potential within, and made that dream a reality. It wasn’t long before his own little corner of Acantha’s mountain pass was filled with old faces from Dytifrourá.

Kosta first worked with his chisel, but Acantha had put a stop to that.

“Tools have their place, but they're a crutch,” Acantha had said as she pried Kosta’s prized chisel from his fingers. He’d made to protest, but she’d silence him with a firm glance. “Do you expect to carve a world from nothingness with this? No. Tools can be lost and misplaced. You must have faith in yourself above all else. Your soul is the only tool you need.”

Acantha had then wandered away in one of her distant moods. She was prone to fits of melancholy. When those struck she acted more like a haunting ghost than a gorgon. Kosta saw little of her for the next day, but all the while he did as she bid. It was interesting, he thought, to see her perspective against Polemus’ ideals.

It made sense, he supposed. Acantha’s power was innate. She expressed her art through the power of her soul, while Polemus channeled his magic through that mindbending brush of his. Perhaps it was only natural that they’d disagree. But which was the correct path?

Was there a ‘correct’ path at all? Part of Kosta wished there was a sure answer. There was comfort in having a firm road beneath his feet. Yet every time that question crossed his mind, Kosta thought back to one of his early conversations with Polemus.

All single facets of a vast gem, Polemus had told him with the self-assured confidence of a sage.

Those thoughts filled his mind as he worked. Kosta’s magic grew well-practiced in carving the faces of his family, Headsman Linus, Evanthe, and a dozen other lost souls. His worries had been pushed back for weeks, but they came flooding back in the peaceful glade where Acantha had made her ancient home.

What were his parents doing now? Did they still hold out hope that he lived? They would have heard Dytifrourá’s true fate by now and heard that it was scattered to the winds. Kosta doubted his letter would have made it to the fort town by now, and there were a dozen things that might go wrong on the road.

Kosta prayed that Evanthe was well. She was the spirit of Dytifrourá, its beating heart and soul, and he knew that its loss must have weighed terribly upon the Myrtle. But Evanthe was sunlight, strong as she was radiant, and he knew she would remain their people’s beacon no matter how dark the night grew.

He relished his days sculpting beneath the shadow of Acantha’s marble home, but Kosta couldn’t help but wish he could speak with Evanthe again. The world was a terribly harsh place. She would know what he should do.

More than the old faces of Dytifrourá graced his makeshift workshop. Kosta carved the visages of the monsters he had slain as well: the manticore in all its horror, a snarling kynokephalon, writhing chimeras, and countless others were made to join Acantha’s petrified menagerie.

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They paled in comparison to Acantha’s preserved trophies, but Kosta still preferred his own work. Acantha’s petrified foes were pristine in detail, trapped in their last moment for eternity by her grey stare, but they were soulless.

Kosta would never deny their beauty or the skill with which they’d been captured, but they rang hollow in his mind. His own craftsmanship lacked the superb musculature and couldn’t hope to replicate every individual hair as Acantha did, but Kosta did more. He didn’t just try to bring his memory to life. He tried to imagine the spirit of the beast, the spirit of their encounter, and manifest that in the stone.

Reality was just a pale reflection of the Dream, after all. He would ease the ideals from the Dream and sequester it away in reality. That was what his creations were, in the end: trapped dreams and frozen imaginings.

Acantha often wandered about in a daze, lost in the memories of centuries past.

“What do you think of?” Kosta asked her one day during his informal lessons. He half-expected to be petrified for the audacity—a feeling he always got when she wheeled around to fix him with a stony stare—but she soothed the hissing of her vipers with a raised finger. “You’re always drifting. It’s as if you’re floating away.”

Silence.

“How old do you think I am?”

“Mama always told me not to bring up a lady’s—”

“Stop. Answer the question, dumb boy.”

Her words weren’t overly harsh, but they didn’t offer any room for disobedience. Kosta’s jaw snapped shut. There was no use in studying Acantha’s marble features, yet he did anyway. She was beautiful, after all, and he thought she would have made a fine model. Time was of little consequence to a mortal practitioner of Acantha’s power (although he wasn’t entirely certain of what heights she’d ascended) and Kosta suspected it mattered even less to a gorgon.

Kosta couldn’t speak for the Stonegaze Aretan, but he wouldn’t have introduced a weakness like old age to his favored creations. Not that he would be sculpting gorgons anytime soon. His attempts at Animation had borne little fruit thus far, though Kosta found some minor success in smoothing his little stone soldiers’ movements. Joints still left the figures unstable, but at least the magic had an easier time guiding them.

He refocused. Acantha waited expectantly. Her serpents waved upon her scalp, hissing at him impatiently. Kosta wouldn’t even consider tossing out a foolish answer like ‘twenty’, though that was about the age Acantha looked.

She was old. It was plain as the sun in the sky. Kosta could see it in the ageless way she moved, the way the very world bowed in respect to Acantha, and the monolithic power which folded around her like the thickest blanket.

Acantha was a scion of the old world. She was born in the time before the Westscour, when the continent had still been whole.

“Five hundred?”

The gorgon hummed. “Close,” she said. “Six hundred and thirty…something. The years blend together after a few centuries. Perhaps you’ll understand one day. I’m old, boy. Very old. My father was frozen beneath the Glass Sea by the witch when I was a girl of two hundred. Most of my life has been spent stewarding this remnant of his old domain. My best days are long behind me. Why shouldn’t I remember them?”

Kosta gaped. It was one thing to know that the woman before him had lived for at least four hundred years. It was another entirely to hear it from her own mouth. She barely registered his surprise. A resplendent butterfly had fluttered over to land upon the folds of Acantha’s chiton.

Acantha smiled appreciatively at the insect and it turned to phaetra. She gently tucked the petrified butterfly into her serpentine hair. A few thin vipers wound around it to hold the fine rosy stone in place. It glittered beautifully in the dusk.

“Why do you do that?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re always petrifying things,” Kosta clarified. “Not just to protect yourself or to make something, but for the sake of it. Why petrify the butterfly? It did nothing to you.”

Acantha blinked, as did her serpents. “Of course not. How does that relate to my art?”

“It never hurt you,” Kosta said. “But now it’s gone.”

“Not gone,” Acantha corrected. Her serpents presented the phaetra butterfly to Kosta. It was gorgeously brilliant, an equal in hue to his own staff’s head, and he almost reached out to pluck it out for himself. Only an especially vicious looking viper stilled his hand. It seemed disappointed by his wise choice. “Preserved.”

“Yes,” Kosta admitted. “But what about its life? Its motion? Its future? All that’s lost now.”

“Life decays. Motions stills. Futures come to an end. What is there to lose?” Acantha shrugged. “Beauty is fleeting. Why not let it be preserved forever? So much has been lost already, and more will join it. The world is full of fleeting things. Why shouldn’t I preserve those which catch my eye?”

Kosta subtly inched away. Perhaps he should stop taking such good care of himself while he stayed with Acantha. It would be a shame if she decided to preserve him.

“You should remember them,” Kosta agreed. “But isn’t there more to life than memory? Reality is just a pale reflection of what could be. I’d rather imagine that hidden glory than lose myself in the past. The future is full of endless possibilities. Why should we focus on those that have already come to pass?”

“Spoken like someone who hasn’t seen their first century,” Acantha said with some amusement. Her lips quirked upwards. “I suppose I’ve never known that sort of optimism. I was molded from stone. It’s never been in my nature to hope.”

Curiosity surged in Kosta. “Are all gorgons born the same way?”

“For centuries,” Acantha said proudly. It must not have been much of a secret given how readily she shared the information. “Father scoured the world for the perfect stone…or subject. When he found it, he breathed life into us. We carry a little piece of him within us.”

Acantha turned away to regard her marble tree fondly, then shook her head. “Most of my sisters are frozen alongside our father in the depths of the Glass Sea, lost forever in time. Perhaps there are others like me elsewhere, younger sisters left to rule lesser territories while our kin marched to war, but we’re a dying breed.”

Kosta’s heart ached. He knew how that felt. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t reply for a moment. The gorgon drifted away, her chiton swaying in the breeze.

“Petrification isn’t a product of idealizations or daydreams,” Acantha said. “It’s memory. Preservation. Ensuring the present never slips into the future. If you wish to learn my art, that’s the truth you must internalize.”

And with that, Acantha left him to ruminate on her words.