2.3 KiB
The keep was never silent. Even in sleep, Winter’s Edge murmured. The old stones creaked in the cold, wood beams settled with groans too old to remember comfort, and the wind—always the wind—threaded through cracks like a forgotten song, half-sung.
Alisha moved through the corridor in soft boots, wrapped in her cloak. The candle she carried flickered against the frostbitten walls, casting long shadows that twitched like waiting things.
She hadn’t meant to walk. She’d only stepped out to clear her head, to find a moment of stillness away from the tight walls of their shared room, from the weight of words unsaid. But her feet carried her farther than intended, past old storage alcoves and dust-veiled archways, toward the outer rim of the keep.
There, she stopped before one of the high, narrow windows.
Snow clung to the leaded glass, thick and laced with ice. She wiped a small circle clean with her sleeve and leaned in.
Beyond the walls, the courtyard lay half-buried. Fire pits had gone cold. A few figures moved along the ramparts—sentries, bowed against the wind.
But it wasn’t them that held her breath still.
Across the courtyard, high in the north tower where Telaryn slept, a flicker moved across the stone.
Not firelight.
Not a guard.
A shadow. Or the echo of one—broad-shouldered, indistinct, like the suggestion of a form without mass.
It stood still for a heartbeat too long.
Then it was gone, swallowed by snow and gloom.
Alisha blinked. Her hand tightened on the candle. The flame guttered low.
She told herself it had been nothing. A trick of the wind. A cloud catching the moon. A tired mind inventing shapes where none stood.
But then—A whisper.
Soft as snowfall. Cold as loss.
It held no words. But it spoke all the same—carrying with it something ancient, mournful, and terribly, terribly hungry. It brushed the nape of her neck like breath, even though she was alone.
She turned, sharply.
No one was there.
The candle flared once more, as if reclaiming its courage.
Alisha backed away from the window. Her heart thundered in her chest, and the frost on the glass began to spread again, spiraling outward in silent vines.
She did not look back until she reached the door of their room.
Only then—just before stepping inside—did she glance over her shoulder.
The corridor was empty.
But something had changed.