Chương 71: Others

"So that we're clear, we're still going to need to talk all of this over with Serel before we settle on anything final," Vera said once they'd finished circling the topic for the last time.

"If she wants to stay here in Marrowfen, I'm not going to force her to go to Caer Virell."

"You believe I would?" Elaria asked.

"Well, no. But I'm saying it anyway."

"Hmph. Then we can speak with her in the morning."

"Sounds good." Vera nodded, watching her for a moment longer than strictly necessary. Elaria raised an eyebrow.

"Is there something else you wish to say?"

"Hmm?" Vera blinked, then shook her head.

"No. Well, yes. But also no." Elaria frowned faintly.

"Mournvale." Vera's mouth pulled into a line. She'd noticed Elaria switched between Vera and Mournvale. The latter seemed to surface more when she was annoyed, and it somehow always managed to make Vera feel like a deer caught in headlights. Like she really ought to be careful with whatever she said next. She'd also noticed that she apparently didn't mind ignoring that instinct sometimes.

Maybe that came from the same streak of masochism that had driven her through endless grind sessions in Ashen Legacy —hours upon hours of repetition for the tiniest numerical gains and marginal optimizations, added on to microscopic improvements she could barely justify to herself. All she knew was that it wasn't the sort of trait she should ever go around admitting to people here.

It was exactly the kind of thing she might toss out to her gaming friends in some late-night call when everyone was half delirious and running on caffeine and bad decisions. It might earn a laugh there—someone like Mira would definitely make fun of her, even though she was a hundred percent worse—but those people were also the kind who'd gotten numb to this stuff after years of internet culture, raid brain, and whatever else came packaged with spending too much of your life online. Elaria was not that.

Elaria was probably still suspicious of her about that whole doll thing. Vera cleared her throat.

"Anyway. Setting all of that aside, I should probably tell you what I found out about the Graven Daughter while I was performing the Rite." Elaria's expression sharpened immediately.

"What did you learn?" Vera hesitated.

"Nothing." Elaria frowned again.

"Nothing?"

"Yes." Vera lowered her voice.

"They confirmed that she was… created by the Forgotten Throne. But beyond that, they didn't know anything. They said they couldn't help at all when it came to her." Elaria brought a hand to her chin, thinking.

"That is not entirely surprising. A Forgotten Throne doesn't abide by the same rules as the Houses. I have already sought further aid from Emberward against the Silence, and they have been unable to offer more than they already do."

"Maybe," Vera said. But she knew for a fact House Hollow could interfere with Forgotten Thrones. At least in a limited sense. That was what had kept the Silence at bay up until now.

"But that's not the confusing part," she continued.

"The confusing part is that I did get help from House Hollow. Back when the Graven Daughter took Serel. I told you about that, didn't I?"

"…You did." Elaria lowered her head.

"Back then, there was something that helped me find her." Vera gestured vaguely.

"I'm almost completely confident it carried Hollow Resonance, and I found it in Marrowfen's Quiet Hall. But when I asked House Hollow about it afterward, they said it wasn't them." A trace of surprise crossed Elaria's face.

"Then what was it?"

"That's the thing. I don't know." The woman studied her closely, as if slightly doubting her.

"You don't have any idea what it might've been?" Vera asked.

"You would be more likely to know than I would," Elaria replied. Vera shrugged.

"And I'm saying I don't. I was just hoping you might." Elaria shook her head.

"I do not."

"Right. I did kind of figure that." Elaria was quiet for a while, then spoke again.

"While I do not know what it was, it is useful to know that another actor was willing to intervene. The Graven Daughter is a large unknown, but perhaps this entity knows more than we do."

"It's possible. I just don't have any way of confirming who or what it is."

"Not for the time being," Elaria said.

"But it is something we should remain alert for. That they intervened once suggests they may do so again, and that could prove an opportunity for us to learn more." Vera looked at her.

"You'll help?"

"Naturally. We have already established that I'm not ignoring Serel's existence, and this concerns her safety."

"…Thank you."

"It is hardly worth mentioning."

"No. It is." Vera hesitated, then added, "It does mean a lot." Even as weird and conflicting as it made her feel. Elaria considered her, expression not changing. Eventually, her focus drifted toward the entrance.

"I would like to investigate the Graven Daughter myself. I suspect I won't have much time to do so in Caer Virell, but I recall that you maintain a rather extensive library here." Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Vera followed her gaze.

"You mean the Ashledger Archive?"

"Is that what you call it?"

"Yes. What, you don't like it?"

"…I do not have any particular opinion." Elaria pressed a hand to the table as she stood.

"Would you object if I searched it for anything related to the Graven Daughter?"

"But I've already looked through the Archive."

"All of it?"

"No. There are far too many texts for that. But I checked most of the obvious ones."

"That may still leave gaps. I am aware that you have looted several rare works over the years, but I hope you aren't offended when I say that I doubt you remember the contents of even a fraction. Even if we find nothing new, I would like to examine it myself and build my own understanding." Vera's mouth twitched slightly. She wasn't offended, per se, but it wasn't her fault that she hadn't really ever had time to read through that stuff.

She was sure that if she'd been the only one to actually collect it all, she would've been more familiar with it. She probably wouldn't have read most of them, but still.

"You're not planning to sleep tonight?" she asked, pushing those grumblings to the side.

"I am not," Elaria replied. Vera studied her, staying on the steadfast look that the woman was giving her, before eventually sighing and standing as well.

"Alright. Fine. I'll join you. It'll go faster if I can show you what I've already checked."

"Do you not intend to sleep tonight?" Elaria was the one to ask this time.

"That's a weird question coming from you."

"I can function without sleep for days if necessary," Elaria said. Her eyes stayed on Vera for several seconds.

"You, however, look tired." Vera paused. She met her eyes, then smiled faintly.

"I am. But I don't think I'll sleep much tonight anyway." For some reason, that caused the woman's expression to worsen just slightly.

"And why is that?"

"I've got these—" Vera started, then stopped herself. Silence lingered between them for a moment as Elaria watched her. Vera chuckled softly and shook her head.

"Never mind. Come on. I'll show you the way." A cold wind slid through the mountain pass, low and whispering, carrying with it the bite of frost and the thin, empty scent of old snow. Old in the way it moved—ancient in its patience, unhurried and shaped by centuries of memory dragged loose from something hoary and unwilling. The chill gnawed at her ankles. It crept upward, numbing skin, staining it a deep, mottled purple that blurred into white where the frost clung too tightly. Beneath her, the snow bit back.

The ice under its surface pressed sharply into her toes, carving pain into flesh with lost sensation. Red dyed the ground under her feet, staining it with color. She watched it with mild curiosity, chin resting on her knees as she hugged them to her chest. Her finger traced idle patterns through the powder beside her, lines looping and crossing without intention. Footsteps crunched behind her. Crunch. Crrsh. A softer huff of displaced snow.

Her head swiveled back and forth to the rhythm of the sounds as they repeated in her mind as much as they did in the air, each one echoing, overlapping, settling and turning over and over in her thoughts. The footsteps stopped. Her head stilled.

"It moved again. Same pattern as before," a voice said.

"If we're going, it's now." She sat still. Her gaze lifted instead, drifting across the length of the pass stretching out ahead of her. A wide expanse of white and stone, hemmed in by jagged peaks rising on either side. Above it all, a ceaseless torrent of snow and cloud churned across the sky, endless and restless, like distant mountains grinding themselves down grain by grain. The breeze tugged her hair down into her eyes.

"Are you ready?" She shifted, snow crrsh-crunching under her as she turned. A man stood a short distance behind her, blond hair stark against the dark of his coat. Her focus slid to his eyes. So dark. So still. Nothing but endless black. Dark like a hole cut into the world. A place you could crawl into if you got close enough. A place that would let you in. She imagined it—pressing her fingers into that darkness and feeling it give, slipping past the surface, sinking deeper.

Slithering and wriggling through the black, greedy with curiosity, prying it open from the inside until she could map every last seam of it. Until the void stopped being a void. Until it became named, measured, and pinned. She smiled without meaning to. A puny frown touched his face as his gaze dropped to her feet.

"…You took them off."

"I wanted to feel it," she said.

"Feel what?"

"The cold." Her voice came out soft, reverent.

"How does it feel to die from it? To feel yourself go numb and then burn and then—" She tilted her head.

"To feel your body decide you're not worth keeping?" His eyes remained on her feet.

"And how did it feel?" She looked down at them. The purple was still spreading. The blood had turned the snow pretty.

"It hurt."

"There was never much chance of another result." Warmth washed over her without warning. It spread quickly, gentle and too encompassing, like being wrapped in a thick blanket from an active hearth. Steam rose as frost and snow melted away. She watched as the beautiful purple faded, skin returning to its usual boring marbling. She scowled. Looking up, she glared at the man. He met her eyes calmly, the Resonance fading off him in thin, invisible threads.

"You're off again. Focus." A moment passed. Then she blinked. The scowl eased, settling into a lingering frown instead.

"Cin," she said.

"Why do you always have to interrupt?"

"Because you were the one who brought me here with you," he replied.

"Now come. We're leaving." He turned and started down the mountainside, boots crunching steadily through the snow. Her eyes followed him for a moment before she clicked her tongue and stood. She glanced down, wriggling her toes experimentally, then a pair of sturdy boots appeared in her hands. Pulling them on, she set off after him. He didn't bother walking quickly. She caught up with ease, falling into step beside him as they picked their way across a scatter of large, snow-drowned rocks.

Her hands clasped behind her back as she leaned slightly toward him, studying his profile. His face was so stale. So unreactive. Very little in the way of expression or wasted motion. Always boring.

"I haven't confirmed that it's the real one yet," he said without looking at her.

"It's more likely that it isn't. But if it is—have you considered how to contact the Covenant's forces to inform them that the pass will open?"

"I haven't," she admitted.

"Haven't thought about it much at all."

"Of course."

"You have, though. You already have a solution, don't you?" His dark eyes flicked down to her. She smiled. Cin looked forward again.

"I have. Invocations won't work, but more traditional means will."

"Traditional? What's traditional to you?"

"I sent for an owl before joining you on this. It should find us within the day." She watched him for a few steps, her smile curling into something more knowing. Then she faced forward again. They walked in silence.

"I heard an interesting piece of news lately," she eventually said, hopping up onto a jutting rock and letting herself drop into the drift beyond it, snow swallowing her legs up to the knees. Cin followed after her, crunching through with heavier steps before climbing onto another slab of stone.

"We are far from all civilization," he said flatly.

"You didn't hear any news."

"Alright," she replied.

"I made up some interesting news lately. Want to hear it?"

"Is there a real choice?"

"Maybe."

"Just tell me."

"Well, if you insist." Her tone brightened.

"Rumor has it that one of the Silent Lords returned out west." Cin stopped. He turned to face her.

"Which one?" She tilted her head, finger tapping thoughtfully at her chin.

"Let's say… Veyrith?" His eyes narrowed.

"Marrowfen?"

"That's where he originally fell, at least." Cin was quiet for several seconds. Then he turned away and resumed walking.

"So the city is gone, then?" She moved up beside him again, observing his expression closely.

"Oh? You're jumping straight to that conclusion? Even though it's just a Silent Lord?" A trace of curiosity entered her voice.

"I wonder if there's a reason you're so sure." He didn't answer. She studied him for another moment before looking ahead, eyes settling on a distant plume of snow and ice spilling slowly down the mountainside.

"Well," she added, almost offhandedly, "you're wrong this time. Marrowfen's still standing. Someone saved it." Cin glanced at her.

"Who?"

"An old friend." He slowed just enough to look at her properly.

"And once again, I ask—who?" She smirked.

"Hmm. Guess we'll find out when we get the chance to meet them."