Now the workmen lit the wedges in quick succession, starting at the outside and working in. The wedges flared up like tiny torches, burning fiercely and quickly, going from wood to ash.

With a grating noise, the slab settled into place, the roadbed now forming one surface.

The crowds cheered wildly, and the group around Abi cheered with them, slapping each other on the backs, some hugging, all of them ecstatic.

Abi stared, transfixed, hardly able to breathe. There it was, her dream, her sweet curve of stone come alive, hovering above the water like the gentle curve of a dove’s wing.

Oh, it wasn’t “finished” yet. It still needed the parapets and pilasters on either side for safety. But those were cut and waiting to be placed, and it wouldn’t take long to get them where they belonged. But that would take a sennight at most with all the workmen on hand, so it would be done before the autumn rains.

She looked at it with her inner eyes, and the soft, muted sweep of stress carried evenly and sweetly from the crown of the bridge, down the subarches, into the arch-span, and into the riverbed walls, like the soft sweep of wind over a hill. And like the bridge in her dreams, it sang. It didn’t cry out in pain. It didn’t groan under a burden off-kilter and askew. It was a melody in stone.

Suddenly she realized the workers and her fellow Masters and Trainees were pushing her toward the stone. Not shouting, but urging her, “Go on, Abi! It’s yours! Go show them who made it!”

When she set her left foot on the limestone roadbed, she thought she was going to cry. A few more paces, and she thought she was going to burst. The crowd went utterly silent, watching her walk, slowly along the creamy stone arch—until she came to the middle, and stopped.

Without even thinking about it, she raised her arms, slowly, and spread them, offering this, the child of her vision, to her city.

The crowd roared.

•   •   •

“That was amazing,” said Kat. “I don’t think I’ve seen people cheer for Mother and Father the way they cheered for you.”

Still feeling so full of nameless emotions she thought she might explode, Abi and Kat had gone up to the top balcony of The Compass Rose, an inn much frequented by Artificers and their Trainees. The lot of her fellows carried Abi off here; Kat had arrived later. Once the serious drinking started, Abi and Kat had managed to get away from them and go up to the balcony to see if it was possible to see the bridge from here.

It was, and it looked even better by moonlight.

“I feel drunk,” Abi said, staring at her bridge. “I haven’t had anything but cider, and I still feel drunk.”