Chapter 17
The air is a pungent mixture of wild garlic and old earth as the four of them dismount the wagon.
They stand in a loose formation at its back wheel, their heads tilted.
The crumbling structures, lurching pillars, rising parapets loom above.
There is an impassivity to the thing, the size of its roofless halls, the scattered masonry—as if nothing they could do to the ruins could matter.
Torver is impermanent under its watchful gaze, feels childlike in a way that unsettles him.
“The Rath is constructed in a similar fashion,” Lavellin notes approvingly. “You can tell from the height of the columns and that style of carving over there—can you see?” It points and all eyes follow the line of its regal finger.
A dark bird perches on the top of a distant arch. It caws in some four-beat rhythm and never before has Torver felt the words no gods, no kings so heavily in his chest. There have been no gods here for a long time, their absence tangible like a cold, wet fog.
Winander breaks their collective reverie, saying that they should take the opportunity to rest and graze the ponies.
He unharnesses them, handling the heavy leather manfully.
Sure knots tie the ponies to the wagon and they graze, bitless and content.
Bassen strolls over and takes her mate’s forearm in her hands, pulling him towards her.
“I’ve never seen a temple before, you know,” she says.
“I should hope not.” Winander smooths his apparently favourite lock of hair behind her ear. “They were terribly illegal at one point. They only stopped being kept under guard six Meddera cycles ago…”
“Yes, I suppose it is a bit naughty that we’re here, isn’t it?”
She leans in close to him. Their noses brush against each other, so close are their softly blushing faces.
“Guys,” Torver whines. “I am begging you to stop.”
Bassen chuckles. Winander’s brow quirks upwards.
“Well, we best get exploring, then,” the blond man says.
“Of course!” She takes his hand in hers. “We should split up though,” she adds, winking at Torver and Lavellin. “We’ll cover more ground that way.”
They tramp off into the expansive grounds, soon disappearing behind ruins and the thick, low-hanging branches of ancient trees. Torver, grumbling under his breath, watches the space where they’d been.
He turns around at the close noise of a throat clearing.
Lavellin smiles at him and its pale green gaze holds him like a hand. A shiver runs down Torver’s spine when he finds himself smiling at it softly. It looks like it wants to say something, passing its slate pendant between one hand and the other.
For reasons he can’t articulate, Torver doesn’t want to give it the chance. Some semblance of panic arises in him when Lavellin looks in his eyes, when it opens its mouth.
“Keep an eye on the horses, would you?” he asks quickly. Lightly ashamed of his cowardice, he walks away before it can reply.
The solitude is an instant relief from the thrumming of his heart and he walks up a small slope, where the foundation of a separate structure rises from the grass like teeth from a gum.
He circles it slowly, eyes unfocused, pushing Lavellin from his mind.
He considers the temple instead, forces himself to think of questions he’s never asked.
Namely—if it was allowed, if it was available to him, would Torver be religious?
Would he be a pious man? Would he attend this temple and be blessed by the beings it housed?
But, frowning, he thinks of his curse; his useless mind and unmagic body. He almost laughs out loud at his stupidity.
Of course the gods would never favour him.
Then, as if the world agrees, he’s tripping over something.
Torver’s arms windmill madly and he lands in spectacular fashion on his hands and knees, the breath knocked out of him and his narrowed eyes darting around for the culprit.
A rock sticking out of the ground
Growling, he turns on the bastard, ready to swear at it or kick it or otherwise make it sorry—but he sees, rubbing his sore wrists, that it’s not a rock at all. It seems to be made of wood.
Smooth wood—rectangular. Perfectly and suspiciously rectangular. Like it has been carved and sanded—a box. One that must have been buried long ago, the ages wearing away at the ground above it. Curious, he digs at the dirt with a nearby stick to retrieve it.
A quick glance over his shoulder confirms that Bassen and Winander are nowhere in sight.
Lavellin is stood by the distant cart in some strange mutual grooming arrangement with one of the ponies.
It’s scratching the animal’s withers while the animal happily nips at its strong shoulder, and Torver stares for a moment. To confirm that it isn’t watching him.
He beats away a quiet thought, a silent wish that it was.
Then he crouches down, pries open the ancient lid of his discovery. The spongy wood disintegrates at his touch, revealing the contents.
Torver’s half-sure he’s hallucinating.
But when he touches the glimmering ingots of gold, they’re hard.
Torver can hardly believe his blinking eyes.
Four thin, glittering bars lie between the ancient splinters.
Perhaps they were ancient currency, or religious relics.
Perhaps an ancient holy man had buried them when the gods were abandoned, thinking he could one day return for them.
Each bar is as thick as ten yan coins, and they must be about a hundred coins long. His heart feels hard when it thumps against his ribs. Iron-clad and relentless.
A lifetime ago, saving yan to counterfeit a new life for himself had been all he’d wanted. Dangling just out of his reach, on the threads of a noose. But now… with this?
He could buy anything he wanted.
Before he can consider the consequences, before he can think of anything other than his papers, his freedom, his mother—he shoves the half-shattered box under his shirt.
He walks back to the wagon, something sharp like guilt is at his throat, like a knife or like teeth. He should tell someone. He should at least tell Bassen, but—
He doesn’t want to. Can’t bring himself to try.
“Good exploration?” Lavellin’s velvet voice makes him flinch. Frowning, he shudders away the tingle when it turns at the waist, extricating itself from the pony.
“Of course,” he replies. “Just going to get some water.”
He hops into the wagon as casually as he may, bending down behind the slats on the side. He chews his lip until he spots a loose section of plank above the wheel well. He pries up the end with white-knuckle fingers, slotting the splintered box in the gap.
He plucks a waterskin from under the seat. Stands to see that Lavellin is looking at him and he hates himself, hates himself, hates himself. Fills his stupid gullet with water until he’s uncomfortably full.
“Are you—” Lavellin starts.
“—I’m fine.” Torver wipes an errant rivulet from his chin with a vicious motion.
“—done with that waterskin?” Lavellin finishes quietly.
Torver’s face heats and he climbs down from the wagon.
He thrusts the skin at Lavellin and tries and fails to look away while it drinks.
The feral pulse of its trachea when it swallows the liquid.
The way it eyes him, lids narrowed, head tilted so its hair falls down its back like vines of ivy hanging from a tree.
It makes an ah noise when it’s done, the waterskin empty. The air feels thick.
“Come with me,” it says eventually. “Let’s climb that tower over there.”
It points to a distant turret to the side of a ruined hall. Torver pulls his gaze from its finger.
“Yeah?” He tries to speak casually but feels like a rabbit in a snare.
“Yeah.” Its eyes flicker to his chest. “You’re tense. I want to—talk.”
Cornered, Torver inhales a breath, and reluctantly follows where it leads. His hands tremble ever so slightly so he puts them in his pockets.
The long grass around the tower presents few challenges, except for how it conceals rabbit holes, the odd fallen stone. Lavellin moves cervinely, like it can sense where they are. Torver follows it, rhythmically tripping.
Something that Torver can’t read is carved into the empty arch of the doorway, its wooden door long since rotted away by the elements.
“It’s a rhyming couplet about watchfulness,” Lavellin tells him, trailing its fingers over the carving, before passing through the empty jamb. “In the old language. This must have been a watch tower.”
Torver exhales sharply from his nose, following Lavellin into the structure. The walls are narrow and hem in on the staircase. He doesn’t trust that the stairs won’t collapse when they walk on them but Lavellin doesn’t hesitate to climb.
“Why would a temple need a watch tower?” He attempts to distract it from the wild pounding of his heart.
“Kings aren’t the only ones with enemies,” Lavellin says simply. The sound fills the spiralling staircase.
They climb until Torver’s thighs burn, until his breathing is audible and embarrassing. Lavellin waits for him at the top, surrounded by an open parapet a little way above the treeline. The open sky above it is bright, the breeze cool when Torver emerges.
Then it turns on him, eyes set in determination.
“So, what’s your problem?” it demands.
Torver jolts. Is the guilt from the hidden gold really showing on his face that clearly? So clearly that it brought him up a tower to stop him running away from its questions? He walks to the edge of the towertop and surveys the ruins below.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says coolly, schooling his breathing into the slow rhythm of a much fitter man.
He reaches for his string, but it’s not on his finger. He finds only the raw band of skin and Lavellin’s eyes darken, following the movement.
It swallows. “I don’t like this dance we’re doing.”
It comes to stand beside him. Its hands rest on the parapet next to his.
“Uh—” Torver blinks. “Dance?”