The cat creature stood up, and then stretched it’s elongated body.
"What is that animal?" Ryan asked.
William looked at him, surprised. "You don’t know what an Elfine is?"
"I’m not from here."
"Oh." William considered this. "Okay." He held out another piece of dried at and Gale took it without moving from her spot, the long fangs did their work surprisingly quickly. "They are quite common. Most noble estates have one, or used to, as they are good for keeping away pests." He glanced at Ryan. "Gale belongs to one of the servants in the outer ward. Maren—she’s been here since before I was born. But Gale sort of decided that the whole estate was hers about four years ago and nobody’s argued with her about it."
Ryan looked at Gale.
"Even though she’s big, she isn’t even fully grown yet," William added.
Ryan looked at the fangs.
"Any bigger and she might eat you," he said.
William smiled. He broke off another piece of the dried at and held it flat on his palm. Gale leaned forward and took it, and William scratched behind her ears briefly—she permitted this.
They sat in quiet for a mont. The garden slled of roses and cool stone. The moonlight and stars gave off what light they could.
"Do you co out here often?" Ryan asked. "At night."
William nodded. "When I can’t sleep... which is most days." He said. "Jas used to as well, sotis. We’d sit here." He looked at the bench, then away. "He’d complain about being cold the whole ti and then stay for an hour anyway."
Ryan said nothing.
William fed Gale the last of the at and brushed his hands on his trousers.
"Can I ask you sothing?" William said.
"Go ahead."
"What happened at the trial. Edward told one version, but I know he was probably lying to make feel sad."
"What did Edward tell you?"
William paused. "He said Jas lost because he was weak. That he—he has his arms and legs severed before they—." His voice began to break up, "He said it was Jas’ own fault."
Ryan looked at the keep.
"That is not what happened," he said.
"I didn’t think so." William was quiet for a long second. Then: "Edward isn’t sad. About Jas." He said. "He’s not sad at all. I’ve been watching him and there’s just... nothing there. Where it should be... that isn’t normal, is it?"
Ryan was about to speak, but William continued anyway.
"He does... things," William said, his voice dropping slightly, not from secrecy so much as from the particular discomfort of telling a story you wished you didn’t know. "To Gale once, when she was small. She was maybe this big." He held his hands apart—not very far, maybe the length of a dinne plate. "He held her underwater in the fountain. For a long ti." He looked at Gale, who was now washing her face with one enormous paw, indifferent to the conversation. "I got her out. Edward just watched do it and didn’t say anything."
The garden was very quiet.
"How old was he?" Ryan asked.
"Fourteen."
William stood up abruptly. "I shouldn’t have said that. Father would be annoyed. He doesn’t like—he doesn’t want to talk about Edward like that."
"I won’t say anything," Ryan said.
William looked at him for a mont, assessing in the frank way he assessed everything.
"Okay," he said. He looked at Gale. "Co on then."
Gale rose, and then stretched again—an extraordinary slow extension of the whole body, the fangs briefly very visible—and then padded after William without a look back.
Ryan sat alone on the bench.
Above him, the stars.
Behind him, the keep, dark and quiet, the black door sowhere on the third floor doing whatever it was doing in the dark, and a window, that if soone was behind, could see straight down to the garden, and a bench where Ryan sat.
Ryan stayed there for a mont, on the bench.
Then the feeling ca.
It began to well up, in the back of his neck, a tingly feeling when it felt like soone was watching you.
Ryan went still, and waited.
But it didn’t go away.
He looked around, but couldn’t notice anyone in the gardens.
He turned and looked up at the keep.
He looked at the dark windows. Every one of them.
He scanned the windows on the third floor.
Just glass and dark stone and the quiet of a sleeping castle.
Then he turned back to the garden. That was when he noticed sothing... a small black bird, trotting around... but when it realised Ryan had noticed it—it flew off into the night.
...and the feeling began to fade.
He stood up from the bench.
Ryan walked across the inner ward toward the open gatehouse, his footsteps quiet on the grass. He went through the gatehouse arch the outer ward opened up, lighter than the inner, the torches here were more abundant.
The outer wall rose ahead of him, the walkway along the top just visible as a darker line against the sky. Stone steps ran up to it at the near corner, and Ryan took them, one hand on the wall beside him, until he reached the top and the night opened up around him properly.
The view from the wall was sothing else entirely.
To the west, over the trees, the city spread out—a dark mass of rooftops and black timber surrounded by light, the roads were pale lines through it, the city walls a distant border. Lanterns burned here and there in the streets, small warm points in the black.
To the east, south, and north, was just forest.
It began at the hill the castle sat upon’s foot, and then went as far as the horizon could take it, the black crowns of the trees still and enormous under the moonlight, stretching further than Ryan could see. No light ca from the forest. No sound ca from it either.
Ryan stood and looked at it for a while.
"Can’t sleep?"
He turned. A guard with a rough accent stood a few paces away along the wall, a Blackwood soldier, fully armoured despite the hour, a spear rested against his shoulder. He was young, around Ryan’s age, with an alert look even with how late it was.
"Yeah, I ditated for too long, I even missed out on dinner," Ryan said, as he looked back out into the forest.
The guard nodded as though this were a reasonable explanation. "Kitchen’ll ’ave bread in the morning. Cook starts early."
"Good to know."
The guard looked out at the forest, then back at Ryan. "You one of the guests? Where’d ya co from?"
"Lithara."
"What’s it like? The capital."
Ryan looked out at the city below. "Loud," he said. "And very bright."
The guard smiled slightly. "Figured."
They stood together for a mont. Then Ryan nodded to him, wished him a good night and ca back down the steps to the outer ward. He then walked back through the gatehouse toward the keep.
The feeling of being watched didn’t return.
He went inside and climbed the stairs, passed the black door as quietly as he could, and went to bed.
He lay on his back and looked at the ceiling.
Edward held her underwater in the fountain.
At fourteen years old. From the way William described It, it wasn’t an accident, that’s for sure. William had been specific about the duration, specific about what followed. How Edward just watched, not guilty in anyway.
There was a word for that, yeah... Psychopath.
He turned onto his side.
Edward isn’t sad. He recalled William say.
No. He wasn’t, he wasn’t sad about his own brother passing away. If anything he seed joyful, as if the mystery knight had done him a favour.
Ryan closed his eyes and let the silence of the castle do its work. The ceiling, the moonlight, the sll of the garden still faintly on his clothes. His thoughts slowed.
Sleep arrived gradually, then all at once.
————
The room was grey with early morning light. It was still dark out, but a bit more bright than when he’d went to sleep.
He lay still for a mont, listening. He thought he heard the clatter of pans far below. Maybe it was the kitchen staff starting a new day.
He sat up, looking around the room.
His body went stiff, frozen.
The door to his room was open.
Not wide open, just slightly, maybe a few inches, the corridor beyond it a narrow strip of grey light.
I closed the door. I’m certain I closed the door.
He rembered the sound of it, the soft click of the latch.
There was no way he’d have left it open.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at it.
The corridor beyond was empty, from what he could see.
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