Chapter 25 - What Festers in Silence
Elarion woke to the pale light, a weak sunbeam slicing through the shutters. He splashed water on his face, pulled on a clean tunic, and double checked the small note he'd scribbled the night before. Finn had insisted Elarion remember their room number, practically making him sign a document to be the designated alarm clock.
His stomach rumbled as he made his way down the hall. He knocked once. No answer. He knocked again. Still nothing. With a sigh, he knocked harder, his knuckles rapping firmly against the wood. Silence. His patience thinned as his hunger grew, and finally he banged on the door with enough force to rattle the latch. The door creaked open at last. Finn stood there, hair a mess, eyes half-lidded, clearly only half awake.
Elarion’s gaze swept past Finn, landing on Jordan. She was a tangled heap on the bed, an arm and leg dangling precariously off the side, lost in a deep, quiet sleep. Elarion’s eyebrow arched, a silent question aimed at Finn. Finn blinked, then a sudden bark of laughter escaped him. “Nah, mate. Not what you’re thinking. We share a room, sure, but it’s a rotation of bed and couch. No… activities happened last night.”
Elarion sighed, rubbing at his temple. “I honestly don’t care. Just wake her up, get yourselves freshened, and meet me downstairs. I want breakfast before I starve.”
He had just turned when Jordan’s muffled voice carried from the bed. “Is that Elarion?”
Finn glanced back. “Aye.”
“Good morning, sunshine,” she called, her voice groggy but laced with mockery.
Elarion closed his eyes for a moment, exhaling through his nose before walking away.
Elarion was already halfway through his porridge when Finn and Jordan finally appeared. Finn looked more awake now, hair tied back loosely, while Jordan sauntered in with a grin and an unrepentant sparkle in her eye. She slid into her seat across from Elarion and, without hesitation, helped herself to a slice of bread from his plate as if it had already been hers to claim.
“Good morning again, pretty boy,” she said again, this time wide awake and clearly amused at how easily she could get under his skin. She tore the bread in half and tucked a piece away in her pocket with a casual efficiency that suggested she never wasted food — or opportunity. Elarion muttered something into his coffee that only made Finn laugh as he dropped into the chair beside her.
The tavern was lively that morning. Soldiers off duty clattered their mugs together, traders argued over the price of spices, and a lute player plucked a cheerful tune by the hearth. For all the noise, the innkeeper, Corvel moved steadily through the crowd with the ease of a man who had long since learned how to keep order. He came over to their table carrying a tray with three steaming mugs. “On the house,” he said, setting them down. His voice was rough as always, but his smile was warm. He lingered, studying them with an appraising eye.
“Thought you might want to know,” he went on, lowering his voice a touch. “Some of the farmers who supply my kitchen came in at dawn. They’ve been losing livestock. Said they’ve heard howls at night, and one swore he saw hooded figures near the treeline. They’re rattled, and not just because they’re afraid. Every sheep or goat that goes missing is coin out of their pockets. And if they lose too many animals, I lose the fresh meat and milk I need for this inn.” His mouth tightened, worry flickering in his eyes. “Some of the farmhands claim they saw beasts out there. Looked like normal woodland creatures at first, but when they got closer the animals looked wrong. Twisted somehow, like an evil aura was leaking out of them. And wherever those creatures stood, the land itself seemed to sicken. Patches of grass and crops left blackened, as if decay followed in their tracks. I care about the farmers’ safety, but if this continues, it will ruin their livelihood and take my business with it.”
Corvel looked at Jordan and then turned back to Finn and Elarion. “The city watch will not lift a finger. Says it is too far from their routes to be worth the trouble. But these are good people, and they have no one else to turn to. I thought of you three. You look like you can handle yourselves.”
Finn’s grin slipped. He rubbed at the rim of his mug, his gaze sharpening. “Ritual work,” he murmured at last. “It sounds like it. The corruption, the decay on the land, beasts that look natural until you are close enough to see the wrongness in them… those are all signs of old magic bleeding into the present. If that is true, then what the farmers have seen might only be the surface of something larger. I would like to study it for myself.” His lips curved faintly, a spark lighting in his eyes. It was not the thrill of a coming fight that stirred him, but the excitement of discovery, the thought of unravelling secrets left buried in the wild.
Jordan snorted softly into her drink. “You can sketch runes in your notebook later, Finn. If this is ritual work, then someone’s behind it, which means someone stands to gain from the mess. And when there’s gain, there’s usually coin.” She tipped her flask toward him lazily. “That’s the part I’m interested in.”
Elarion let them trade words while he turned the thought over quietly. Adventuring did not seem so foreign after all. It was not all wonder and discovery, as he once imagined, but work not unlike what he had done before: protecting folk, chasing threats into the dark, standing in the space between danger and those too busy or too fragile to endure it. He thought of the long nights patrolling his grove against the Moonbound, the bandits he had scattered on narrow woodland trails. This, it seemed, was only a wider road with the same kind of dust on his boots.
Elarion set down his spoon. Jordan was already smiling at the thought of a fight, Finn’s scholar’s curiosity practically humming in the air, and his own pulse had quickened at the very mention of howls in the night. He felt the restless fire stirring in his chest again, the same one that had carried him through his first battle, but instead of the eager reply that was rising to his lips, Elarion lifted his mug and let the steam warm his face. “Tell us where to find them, Corvel,” he said after a pause. His voice was steady, resigned rather than eager. “We’ll see it done.”
The innkeeper’s face eased into something like relief. “Then eat well and gather what you need. I’ll have directions waiting when you’re ready to set out.”
Jordan raised her tankard with a grin that refused to fade. “To new jobs, free meals, and scaring cultists back into whatever holes they crawled from.” She drank deep, cheer and bravado spilling off her words, the exact opposite of Elarion’s weighted tone. Finn laughed into his drink, and eventually, even Elarion could not help but smile.
The three of them set out by midmorning, Corvel’s directions in hand. The dirt road curved away from Ruith’s bustle and into farmland that sprawled quiet and wide under the late summer sun. Scarecrows stood at the edge of fields, their shadows stretched long across golden grain. Beyond that, the land began to slope into wild woods, the green darkening as the trees gathered close.
Elarion walked ahead at first, boots steady on the road, his eyes scanning the ground and treeline in a way that felt second nature. He could almost forget this was not Selathryn’s border he was patrolling, almost imagine he was back in the groove of his old duties. Yet there was no Kolvar waiting for reports, no scouts trailing behind him, no weight of responsibility pressing his every step. The air felt freer here, and though the difference was small, it made his chest ache with something bittersweet.
When he slowed his stride to match Finn and Jordan, curiosity got the better of him. “Is this your norm?” he asked, glancing between them. “Taking jobs like this?”
Finn hummed low in his throat, as though considering how best to answer. “More often it is us seeking out trouble, not the other way around. I go where I think I might find traces of what I am studying. Most academics would never dream of stepping into places like this. They prefer to send others and read the reports afterward. But second-hand words do not tell you what the earth feels like beneath your feet, or what sound a corrupted beast makes when it breathes. There is a kind of knowledge you only gain by standing there yourself.”
There was something almost reverent in the way he said it, a quiet thrill that softened the rough edge of his voice. His eyes shone faintly, not with battle hunger but with a scholar’s joy at the thought of discovery.
Jordan tipped her flask and drank, the metallic glug of liquor punctuating the moment. “Which is the polite way of saying Finn drags me into these things because he gets starry-eyed over dangerous mysteries. Keeps life from being boring, though.” Finn gave her a sideways look, unimpressed, but the twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed amusement. He turned back to Elarion. “And you? You seem calm enough for someone new to the adventuring life. First outings usually make folk twitchy.”
Elarion thought about that, his gaze drifting to the trees ahead. “It is not so different from what I have done these past ten years. Scouting, tracking, watching. It feels familiar.” The words came out simple, but they stirred a rush of memory: nights spent lying awake in the branches of an oak, mornings waking with dew in his hair, the sound of wolves padding through the underbrush at his side. Those days had shaped him, yet remembering them now felt distant, like looking at a life left behind in another world.
Finn studied him in silence, the weight of his gaze steady and unflinching. At last he said, “Familiar does not mean easy. I suppose your job was never an easy one.”
The remark landed deeper than Elarion expected. Something in Finn’s voice carried no judgment, no attempt to pry, just plain understanding. It sank into him like warmth against the cold edges of old memories. He had not expected comfort from this professor with too many piercings and a sharp tongue, yet here it was, quiet and disarming.
For a heartbeat, Elarion almost smiled.
Jordan broke the quiet with a sudden laugh, leaning forward until her elbows rested on her knees. Her crimson eyes flicked over Elarion like she was appraising him in a way that had nothing to do with combat. “You’re too pretty for this kind of work,” she declared, almost in wonder.
Elarion blinked at her, caught off guard.
“I mean it,” she went on, eyes shining almost like a child staring at a new toy in a shop window. “You are one of the most stunning people I have ever laid eyes on, and here you are trudging through dirt and shadow like some mercenary. Handsome face, rough work, dirty hands…” She grinned wide, leaning back with a satisfied sigh. “Admittedly, that’s pretty hot.”
Finn barked out a laugh, the sound rolling easily through the trees. “She is not wrong. The lythari are known for their beauty. Most folk only whisper about them like myths, and here we are, lucky enough to have a real one walking beside us.” He smirked at Elarion, his eyes glinting with mischief. “So, you had better live up to the image we have built, mate, or I’ll be very disappointed if you turn out to be absolute dogshit in a fight.”
Elarion’s lips curved into a boyish smirk, his stride lightening for the first time since they had left the road. “I’ll do my best,” he said, the words carrying both sincerity and play. “But try not to swoon.”
Finn chuckled, shaking his head, while Jordan threw her head back and laughed until her tail flicked behind her like a whip.
Their chatter faded as the path carried them further from the warmth of the village and into the fields. At first the air felt fresh, touched with the salt of the sea breeze and the scent of summer grain, but as they drew closer to the farmland, the quality of it shifted.
Elarion slowed, his eyes narrowing. He had grown up in a grove where the rhythms of wind and soil were constant companions, and when something broke those rhythms, it pressed against him like a discordant note in a song. There was a bitterness on the wind that did not belong, an undercurrent beneath the usual scents of earth and crop. It was subtle, but enough to prick the edges of his awareness.
Beside him, Finn came to a halt as well. He sank to one knee and pressed his palm to the soil. His eyes flickered closed, and his breath steadied as though he were listening to something only he could hear. When he opened them again, his brow was knit with unease. “The land isn’t breathing right,” he murmured. “It feels strained, as if something is draining its strength.”
Guided by that shared sense of wrongness, they followed a narrow ridge until the corruption revealed itself. The earth ahead was darkened in patches, the plants around it bent and withered. The soil seemed to sag as though something had spoiled it from beneath, and even the air above felt heavier, as though weighed down by the decay.
Finn moved forward immediately, the energy in his stride shifting into sharp focus. He crouched low, brushing aside dying stalks to study the blackened soil. Already his tone had changed, muttering half-formed observations, like a professor falling into a lecture no one else could quite follow. His fingers traced circles in the dirt, drawing on druidic focus as he tested the residue of whatever had poisoned the field.
Elarion remained upright, his gaze sweeping slowly across the horizon. He noted the uneasy sway of the crops, the absence of small birdsong that should have laced the afternoon, the stillness that hung too long between gusts of wind. He could not shake the sense that the land itself was holding its breath.
Jordan wrinkled her nose at the sour tang in the air. “No need for three of us to crowd over a patch of dirt,” she said, glancing toward the cottages scattered beyond the rise of the hill. “The farmers might know what happened first. I’ll speak to them and see what they’ve noticed.” Without waiting for a reply, she set off across the uneven ground, her stride quick and purposeful, braid swinging against her back. Finn hardly seemed to notice her leave, already absorbed in his work, but Elarion tracked her with his eyes until she reached the rise, before turning back to the unnerving silence of the fields.
By the time Jordan returned, the sun had dipped lower, painting the farmlands in amber light. She looked unsettled, though she kept her words clipped and practical.
“Some of the farmers mentioned seeing cloaked figures heading east, toward the old shrine. Haven’t used it in years. Sounds like our friends have taken it for themselves.”
The three moved in silence across the uneven ground. Elarion took the lead, his steps measured and deliberate, eyes scanning for signs of disturbance. He knelt more than once, brushing his fingers over faint impressions in the soil where boots had passed or checking the edges of the path for wire or rune-markers. Each time he straightened, his expression was wary, but he gave a small nod for them to continue.
Finn kept to the middle, senses tuned outward in a way that gave the impression he was listening to more than the rustle of grass or the creak of branches. His eyes lingered on patterns that others might have missed: a patch of foliage turned at a strange angle, a crow circling overhead without a call. Everything about the land was tense, as if holding on to a secret.
Jordan walked with her usual bold stride, though quieter than usual. Her hand hovered near the flask at her hip, fingers brushing the metal again and again as if waiting for the right moment.
It was Elarion who first spotted the glow through the trees. He crouched low and motioned the others forward. Past the underbrush lay an open clearing where ancient stones ringed a bare patch of earth, their surfaces carved and weathered with age. It was like a miniature Stonehenge, long abandoned by the villagers. Now it pulsed with torchlight.
Cultists filled the space, hoods drawn, voices raised in unison as they chanted around a shallow pit at the circle’s centre. The sound was low and rhythmic, carrying a weight that pressed uncomfortably on the ears. The trio ducked behind a rise of earth, crouching shoulder to shoulder.
“There are a lot of them,” Elarion whispered. His eyes flicked between the stones, counting shadows, tracking the rhythm of the chant. “Three, maybe four for each of us.”
“Numbers aren’t everything,” Finn muttered, calm but sharp. “I’ll give us an opening. When the spell takes hold, strike the ones it catches.”
Jordan smirked faintly, though her eyes were cold. “What sort of opening?”
Finn adjusted his grip on his staff. “You’ll see.”
They separated, moving along the edges of the clearing, each keeping low and out of sight. Elarion slipped between the shadows of old stones, every motion smooth, every step tested before he placed his weight. Jordan circled the opposite side. Just before she moved into position, she pulled the flask free, tipped her head back, and took a long swallow. By the time she lowered it, her breathing had sharpened, her focus narrowing into lethal clarity.
When Finn reached his vantage, he set his staff into the earth and began to whisper the old words. Power hummed outward, and the ground itself stirred in answer. Roots burst from the soil to coil around the nearest cultists. Branches lashed down from the surrounding trees, cracking against shoulders and hoods. Stones shifted underfoot, tripping others mid-chant. The circle erupted in chaos.
Elarion sprang from cover, blades flashing as he cut down the first cultist trapped in the roots’ grasp. Jordan surged forward like a storm unleashed, fists and elbows striking with bone-cracking force. One cultist’s ribs shattered beneath her palm; another collapsed when she drove her knee into his jaw. She moved faster than most could track, a blur of brutal, efficient strikes, every blow a killing one.
For every enemy they felled, more turned toward them, shouts breaking the ritual’s rhythm. Yet the trio’s experience showed. Elarion moved with the precision of a seasoned scout, fast and decisive. Jordan was raw force, her body a weapon honed by discipline and drink. Finn stood firm at the edge of the shrine, maintaining his spell as nature itself became his ally, branches and roots tearing through the cultists.
But beneath the rush of combat, Finn felt something else. His druidic focus stretched deeper into the soil, pulling against its resistance, and what answered was wrong. The earth here did not breathe or pulse with life as it should. It was hollow, drained, like a body stripped of its soul. And somewhere under that emptiness, he thought he felt a mind stirring; cold, alien, and aware.
The cultists fell in droves, their chants broken into panicked cries as roots bound their limbs and fists or blades cut them down. The shrine rang with the chaos of battle, torches sputtering in the sudden storm of violence. Then, beneath their feet, the ground rumbled. At first it was subtle, a vibration running through the earth, but it deepened quickly into a steady, rolling growl. The trio froze for half a breath, senses bristling.
From the far end of the shrine, new figures emerged out of the darkness. Four in total. The first moved with an unhurried calm, as though the chaos meant nothing to him. His cloak was the same hue as the fallen cultists’, but finer, marked with runes stitched in twisting, organic patterns. Three more followed, broader of frame, their bearing sharp and disciplined. These were not common fanatics. They were trained, battle-ready, eyes sharp beneath the shadows of their hoods.
The leader stopped just beyond the torchlight, then stepped into it, revealing a face lined with tattoos that curled like vines across his skin. His eyes glimmered with unnatural green, and in his presence the air seemed to sour. Finn stiffened, his breath catching. He knew the aura instantly. Druidic power, but twisted and palpably wrong.
“So that’s how they’ve done it,” Finn murmured. His jaw tightened. “They have one of ours.”
At a subtle gesture from the corrupted druid, a shape moved behind him. From the shadows padded a massive direwolf, its body warped by whatever dark ritual had been forced upon it. Tufts of matted fur clung to protruding bone, eyes burning with a sickly light. Saliva dripped from bared fangs as it growled low, waiting for the command to strike.
The sight of it hit Elarion like a blade through the chest. Memory flashed unbidden: the broken of his siblings, the smell of blood, the moment he learnt of the direwolf that killed them. His vision narrowed, the present moment blurring with the past. His grip around his blades tightened, knuckles pale, eyes hardening with a fury he did not often allow himself to feel.
The ground trembled again beneath the cult’s circle. The corrupted druid raised his staff, the direwolf snarled, and Elarion’s rage boiled over, waiting for release.