Exile's End
Novelette 13,385 words Recommended by 3 award/anthology sources
Exile’s End is a complex, sometimes uncomfortable examination of artifact repatriation and cultural appropriation. An artifact of indescribable and irreplaceable beauty created by an “extinct” culture has been the basis of another culture’s origin stories. The race who created the artifact has survived on a distant world and has sent a representative to reclaim it, throwing everything into question.
Quasar links out; the story lives on Tor.com, where the author gets the click.