Chapter 7 #2
The conversation over, they set off again.
The forest grew denser, the trunks crowding in until only a sliver of sky was left overhead.
The calls of birds faded, replaced by the slow, relentless tick of water running from root to root.
Every so often, Kael stopped, cocked his head, and listened.
Once, when the sound of distant voices drifted from the west, he pressed Alina into the shadow of a fallen oak and waited, one hand lightly on her arm.
She tried to ignore the heat of his palm, the way her pulse jumped under the contact.
He held her there until the voices had faded, then let go as if he’d never touched her at all.
By midday, the ground began to rise. The air grew colder, the underbrush thinner. Alina’s calves screamed with every step. Still, Kael did not hurry her, nor did he offer to slow the pace. He simply adjusted, matching her stride without the smallest sign of irritation.
After a time, Kael veered off the faint trail, pushing aside a curtain of wet ferns.
“This way,” he said, voice low. Alina followed, irritation simmering beneath her skin.
How could he act so calm, so unhurried, not bothering to tell her where they were going?
She almost demanded answers but the look on his face, all focus and tension, told her now wasn’t the moment for more bickering.
Branches snatched at her sleeves as the ground sloped upward, growing rockier and slick with moss. Alina’s breath came short. She pretended not to notice as Kael slowed his stride when she lagged behind, or how he always seemed to know just when to pause so she could catch up without asking.
They pressed through a thicket, and suddenly the woods opened onto a clearing.
Alina blinked at the unexpected space, the ruins of a watchtower looming at its heart, dark and jagged against the pale sky.
Ivy wrapped the crumbling stones, and a faint blue shimmer, barely more than a ripple in the air, misted its base.
Magic, she realized, and felt a strange shiver of both awe and wariness.
Kael approached the tower, pushed away some of the ivy to reveal a slab of wood leaning against the stone.
He rapped out a coded knock. Some moments passed.
Then, with a creaking sound, the shimmer parted and exposed an open doorway, spilling out soft light.
Warmth and the scent of steeping herbs emanated from the room within, accompanied by the wary gaze of a tall, silver-haired woman.
Was it Elara Moonshadow? No, but she looked very much like her.
Her eyes flicked over Alina, sharp and appraising.
Kael inclined his head. “She needs to see.”
The woman considered them for a breath. “Inside, then. Quickly.” She stepped aside, her eyes lingering on Alina for a long, uncomfortable moment.
Inside, shadows danced over the rough stone walls from the dim light granted by the few battered lanterns in the corners, glowing amber.
The quiet was heavy, broken only by the occasional murmur or the distant, muffled whimper of a child.
Alina brushed the wetness from her hair, unease prickling across her skin.
She could feel the burden of unseen eyes, the tension in the air like a drawn bowstring.
Whatever Kael wanted to show her, it waited in the gloom ahead.
He led her through the cramped entryway.
Every step felt like a trespass, her palace upbringing suddenly clumsy and brittle in this place of hardship and secrets.
Alina straightened her back, summoned what dignity she could, and followed, bracing herself for whatever truth lay in the watchtower’s shadow.
The warmth that greeted Alina was a physical shock after the forest’s chill, thick with the scent of steeping herbs, woodsmoke, and the underlying moldy smell of moist stone.
She blinked in the dim light, her eyes struggling to adjust from the bland wintry light outside to the amber glow of a few battered lanterns that hung from iron hooks driven into the wall.
The entryway was little more than a widened section of the tower’s base, the ceiling low enough that Kael had to duck his head.
The silver-haired woman closed the heavy door behind them, the groan of wood and scrape of stone cutting off the outside world.
The faint blue shimmer Alina had seen from the clearing seemed to solidify for a moment around the doorframe before fading from sight, leaving only the rough-hewn planks.
The tower, while being old and musty, was fully intact, not the crumbling ruin it was made to look.
The walls were whole, there was a full floor over their heads and probably a solid roof as well.
The outside appearance of the tower must have been an illusion, carefully crafted to hide whatever secrets it held within.
Alina supposed it was by the hand of the woman who had opened the door.
Alina could not but admire the workings of the Gift.
The woman turned to them, her movements economical and silent.
Her hair was indeed a sheet of silver, pulled back from a severe, handsome face.
Her eyes, a pale, piercing blue, assessed Alina with a cool neutrality that was more unnerving than open hostility.
She wore simple, dark robes, but they were clean and well-made, the fabric whispering against the stone floor as she moved. She was unnervingly like Elara.
“She needs to see,” Kael repeated, his voice lower now, respectful.
The woman’s gaze flicked from Alina to Kael and back again. “The archives?” she asked, though it sounded less like a question and more like a confirmation of a grim duty.
Kael gave a single, sharp nod.
“And the others?”
“Them first.”
The woman’s lips tightened almost imperceptibly.
“As you wish. They are resting. Try not to disturb them overmuch.” She gestured for them to follow her deeper into the tower’s heart.
“The wards are holding,” she added, her tone shifting to a more practical report.
“The king’s hounds passed half a mile to the south yesterday evening. They smelled nothing. Saw less.”
“Good,” Kael said, the word a soft exhalation of relief.
Alina followed, her damp boots making soft, squelching sounds on the flagstones.
The main chamber of the tower was circular, the walls curving away into shadows.
To the right, she could see a small set of stairs climbing along the wall onto the next floor.
Fire crackled in the large hearth, its light dancing over a handful of people huddled on bedrolls and threadbare blankets.
Their faces were turned away, their postures slumped in exhaustion or despair.
The air here was different, laden with a grief so palpable it felt like a fourth presence in the room.
Kael stopped near the fire, keeping his distance from the huddled forms. He turned to Alina, his golden eyes catching the firelight.
“This is one of our safe houses,” he said, his voice low but clear in the quiet room.
“There are a handful, scattered where the land remembers the old magic. This tower is one such place.”
He gestured vaguely upward, toward the upper floors. “Branna maintains it. The protections you felt outside—the shimmer in the air—that’s her work. It confuses the eye, turns seekers away, masks sound and scent. It makes this place… forgettable to those who mean us harm.”
Alina’s eyes were drawn to the silver-haired woman—Branna—who had moved to a small table and was meticulously grinding herbs with a stone pestle.
Her hands moved with a sure, unconscious grace, and for a moment, the air around her fingertips seemed to hum with an energy that made the fine hairs on Alina’s arms stand up.
“It’s not illusion,” Kael continued, following her gaze. “It’s persuasion. It suggests to the world that this tower isn’t worth the trouble of noticing. The forest agrees. The stones agree. And so, most of the time, the king’s soldiers agree.”
He fell silent, letting her absorb the barrage of new information.
Alina looked from the magical keeper to the desolate refugees to the ancient, warded stones.
This was no warrior’s camp. It was a sanctuary, a secret whispered into the ear of the world.
The sheer practicality of it, the deep, embedded power required to maintain such a thing, was staggering.
It spoke of a resistance that was older, more patient, and far more clever than the brutish rebellion her father’s stories had described.
A sense of anticipation, cold and sharp, began to coil in her stomach, cutting through her residual irritation.
This was not a show of force. This was the revelation of a foundation.
Kael hadn’t brought her here to threaten her with an army; he was showing her the roots of something.
The fact that he was showing her at all meant he believed the roots mattered to her.
Her hands trembled, faint and delicate. Alina clenched them into fists at her sides, hoping no one had noticed.
The amulet at her throat, usually a cold and dormant weight, felt strangely aware—not quite vibrating, but present, all the same.
She resisted the urge to touch it. The quiet in the room was no longer just an absence of sound; it was a listening silence.
She wondered what it was waiting for. She wondered what Kael was about to show her that required this solemn, almost sacred preamble.
What came next would not be another argument. It would be evidence.