The carriage door swung open. A man stood at it, one hand on the fra, inclining his head as each of them stepped down. He was older, composed, with the particular bearing of soone who had spent a long ti managing a household of considerable size and had arrived at a place of permanent, unruffled calm.
Ryan reached back for his bag.
"If you’ll permit , sir," the man said pleasantly, "your luggage will be brought up to your rooms. There’s really no need to carry it yourself."
Ryan looked at the pile of bags and armour still inside the carriage.
"All of it?"
"All of it," the man nodded. "My na is Adrian. I am the head steward of Blackwood Castle. Should you need anything at all during your stay, please do not hesitate to find ."
Ryan let go of the bag and stepped down the carriage step.
The sun had strengthened since they’d left Lithara. The cold enating from the bracelet was the only thing keeping Ryan from heatstroke.
Lord Blackwood was already at the top of the keep steps by the ti they had all left the carriage.
He stood with a servant, exchanging a few quiet words, and turned as the group began to climb out.
Lord Blackwood descended the steps to greet them. "Welco," he said, addressing all four with the sa asured gravity he’d carried in the dormitory room. "My ho is yours for the duration of your stay. Please treat it as your own."
"Thank you, Lord Blackwood."
"Please, call Cedric." He gestured them toward the entrance, and they followed him inside.
The entrance hall stopped them all in their tracks.
The ceiling rose two floors above, supported by stone columns carved with the Blackwood tree in repeating panels. The floor was dark polished stone, so smooth it caught the light from the chandelier above—iron, enormous, carrying enough candles to fill the hall with a warm and even glow despite the hour. The walls were hung with tapestries so large they could be placed on the outer walls of the castle. They depicted hunting forest scenes and battle sequences rendered in deep reds and blacks.
Servants moved throughout the space. So carried linens, so attended to small tasks along the walls, two polishing the far end of the floor on their hands and knees. To Ryan’s left, a door stood half open into a staircase, and from sowhere beyond it ca the warm sll of sothing being cooked—herbs, at, heat.
Ryan’s stomach made its opinion known.
A door at the far end of the hall opened.
The boy who ca through it was young— thirteen at most, dark haired like the rest of the Blackwoods he’d seen, still wearing mud on his boots from whatever he’d been doing outside, which suggested no one had managed to intercept him before he reached the entrance hall. He crossed the distance to his father at a pace that was technically not running, but close to it.
The boy’s eyes were glassy. Not tears, but close to it, the red at the rims suggesting he had already cried once today and was holding the rest of it back.
"Is it true?" he said. "About Jas?"
"Yes," Lord Blackwood said quietly.
The energy went out of the boy all at once. He pressed his face against his father’s chest and Lord Blackwood’s hand moved to the back of his head.
They stayed like that for a while, longer than Ryan expected—the boy’s shoulders rising and falling once, unevenly. The boy straightened, and pulled out of the hug.
He turned and noticed for the first ti that there were four strangers standing in the entrance hall.
He looked at each of them in turn with the frank, unguarded assessnt of a young noble who hadn’t yet learned to disguise his curiosity.
"Are you the ones who fought my big brother in the trial?"
"William," Lord Blackwood said.
"I’m just asking."
"Yes," Ryan said.
William absorbed this with a nod, as though it confird sothing.
"You weren’t supposed to know they were coming," Cedric said. "You read the letter, didn’t you?" Cedric looked at his youngest son steadily, and then sighed. "That was for Adrian’s eyes."
William’s expression remained entirely unrepentant. "I found it on the table."
"You were not ant to read it."
"I didn’t read all of it."
Lord Blackwood said nothing further, which appeared to constitute the end of the matter for both parties. He rested a hand briefly on William’s shoulder. "Go and get changed. We’ll eat shortly." He looked at the group. "Forgive —I have matters to attend to. Adrian will show you to your rooms and give you the lay of the castle. Lunch will follow soon after." He moved toward the far corridor without ceremony, and William fell into step beside him, already saying sothing that Ryan didn’t quite catch.
The entrance hall settled.
Ryan looked around. No sign of Edward anywhere.
Don’t forget my brother.
He’d assud Jas had ant Edward. But standing here now, watching William disappear down the corridor still red-eyed and too young for any of this—
Did he an William? He paused. Why would I even protect either of them anyway? Don’t they have like, Ryan thought back to every soldier manning the castle, and the knights he’d seen, a thousand guards?
Adrian spoke, nudging him out of his stupor. "Whenever you are ready."
"Lead the way," Jas said.
Adrian moved through the keep at a pace that balanced thoroughness with efficiency—he must have done this before a thousand tis and knew precisely how much to show and how much to leave for people to discover themselves.
He pointed out the dining hall first—a long room deep into the castle, the table was massive, but only laid out for eight, the walls were hung with portraits, one of which was Cedric.
"Lunch is served here daily at half past one," Adrian said. "Dinner is at sundown. If you require anything outside of those hours, the kitchen staff are available from early morning until late evening. You need only ask."
Jared’s attention had already drifted toward the corridor at the far end. The sll coming from behind the heavy door there was significant.
"Is that—" Jared started.
"The kitchens, yes," Adrian said. "I’m afraid I can’t take you through—it would rather disrupt the staff. But the results will speak for themselves at half past one."
Jared looked at Jas. Jas looked at the door.
"Thirty minutes," Jared said.
"Twenty-eight," Jas said.
Adrian continued.
The library was on the upper floor—two storeys of shelves climbing to a vaulted ceiling, a reading gallery running around the upper level with a narrow iron railing, the light coming in through tall arched windows that looked out over the inner ward. The collection was dense and well organised, the spines old and varied.
Eleanor stepped through the door and stopped.
"We can co back," Ryan said to Eleanor.
She didn’t answer. She was already reading the nearest spine.
"We can co back, right?" Ryan asked, to Adrian this ti.
"Of course," Adrian said. "The library is available to all guests at any hour."
Eleanor re-erged from the library with a reluctant expression.
Adrian brought each of the group to their rooms in turn. Jared’s was on the second floor, Jas beside him. Eleanor’s was further along the sa corridor, overlooking the garden.
Ryan was the last.
They took the stairs to the third floor, Adrian moving at his usual asured pace, narrating briefly as they went—the upper floors were largely storage now though they had once housed the castle garrison.
Then he turned down a corridor Ryan hadn’t seen yet, and his pace quickened—just slightly, and they passed a door on the left without a word. Adrian’s eyes didn’t even look at it.
Ryan glanced at it as they passed.
A closed door. It was black, much darker than all the others.
He looked back at Adrian’s back and said nothing.
"Your room," Adrian said, stopping at the next door along, and twisting the handle. "I hope it suits you."
The wallpaper was a light faded red.
The furniture was dark wood, heavy and well crafted, the kind of furniture that didn’t move when you sat on it unexpectedly. A window seat overlooked the inner ward and the garden below, the crimson flowers still bright in the midday light.
The bed was large, it had a tapestry behind it, but it was more of a portrait of anything.
The man depicted held similar features to Cedric Blackwood, he held a sword in one hand... and a skull in the other.
Ryan stood beside the bed for a mont.
His bags were already there, stacked neatly against the far wall.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked out the window absentmindedly.
I wonder how Elly is. It was a strange thing to wonder about—as she was dead...
I wonder if there will be different ghosts here, than in Lithara, there must be so. It’s a castle after all, thousands will have died here, at least a couple must have lingered on
He looked at the bracelet properly for a mont. Cold, black tal, crude workmanship—clearly the creator didn’t care for fancy, superficial design.
Who made this, and... why? What use is there of being able to speak to people long dead?
He set the matter aside in his mind and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The stone above him was dark and old and very still. Sowhere below, the kitchens were producing sothing that had now reached even this floor.
Ryan closed his eyes for a mont.
Outside, the castle went about its business.
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