Alastair Von Vexx's Arc

Chapter 5 of 13

The grove held its breath around them. Alastair rose from the bloodstained bench, Wisteria's hand still in his, and felt the night tighten like a drawn wire. Somewhere past the trees, a faint chime cut the air — a thin, repeating note that did not belong to any bird. He turned his head toward it. A signal. Not his. Meant for other ears. He let go of her fingers and stepped toward the sound. He found it hooked on a low branch. A battered lantern with cracked glass and a sooty frame swung in the wind. Its flame pulsed in short bursts, then long. A code. He knelt by a mossy carved stone at the lantern's base and pressed his palm to the cipher cut into its face. The marks warmed under his hand. Numbers. A direction. A name for a place he knew too well. The message snapped clear in his mind. The attack at the gate was a feint. Their real goal lay deeper in the grove — the bright cavern of gems hidden beneath the roots, where old power slept in cut stone. They meant to strip it bare while his guards bled at the wall. Alastair's jaw locked. He memorized the count, then closed the lantern's shutter to kill the flame before any other eye could read it. He walked back to Wisteria with the truth folded tight inside him. "They want the cavern," he said. "The wall is only noise." Her fingers found his again. The signal was dead. The plan was his now. Tonight, the enemy would strike a door he had already chosen to leave open — and find him waiting where they thought he could not be.