Summary of The Stone’s Choice by Anaea Lay
Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #448, January 8, 2026
In the mountain city of Lik, young Tadlomilik learns the art of stone carving while forming an unexpected bond with Likhavsinkakti, the winter witch who saved their civilization. The mountain itself was once a powerful entity that created gods from its beloved witches, until pact-keepers came ten thousand years ago, slaughtering those gods and binding the mountain with chains that forbade it from ever taking another witch.
For millennia, Lik suffered under this curse, the mountain unable to sustain its people, slowly starving. Then, two centuries before Tadlomi’s birth, the winter witch emerged from the mountain and freed the city, though their very existence violates the pact and threatens to bring the pact-keepers’ wrath down upon them all.
Tadlomi’s education unfolds on multiple levels. From the witch, they learn not just craftsmanship but also patience and respect for materials. The witch teaches them to walk across space using the mountain’s power and shows them how to create mirrors that connect to other powers across the world. From Djatsostilik, an elderly philologist in their family, Tadlomi learns about history, language, and the bitter truth about the witch’s origins—revealed gradually through an ancient scroll written by a pact-keeper who witnessed the binding of the mountain.
Key Plot Points
- A pact-keeper circle arrives to execute the witch for violating the ancient decree, but the witch and their five companions form a complete circle themselves and destroy the intruders
- The witch launches a war against the pact, frequently away conquering cities and freeing other bound powers
- Djatsosti reveals their complicated romantic history with the witch, marked by an angry demand to know the witch’s true name—a promise the witch keeps by remaining silent
- The scroll’s translation reveals the witch’s origin: they were a child hidden in the mountain during the gods’ slaughter, kept alive by the mountain feeding on them in a relationship both sustaining and cruel
- The pact-keepers removed this child from the mountain, stunting their development, condemning them to live with another power and never reach full maturity
As Tadlomi prepares to leave for their napi period—the transformative years when children become adults—the witch gifts them a mirror showing the workshop where they spent so much time together. The witch refuses to accept Tadlomi’s promise to return to Lik, unwilling to bind them to a choice they might regret, though the witch themselves has never regretted choosing the mountain and its people.
The story concludes with Tadlomi witnessing a final, poignant moment: the witch and the dying Djatsosti speaking together in Godstongue, the language of the gods, sharing at last the intimacy that decades of fear and misunderstanding kept from them. Through Tadlomi’s eyes, we see a witch who is simultaneously fierce protector, patient teacher, passionate lover, and eternal outsider—someone who contains multitudes without wavering, who keeps promises even when those promises mean eternal loneliness, and who loves both the mountain and its people with a devotion that transcends simple categorization.