Aldric Starweaver's Arc

Chapter 3 of 10

The iron box sat on a flat stone by morning. Faelan had hauled it from the rubble at midnight, and now the whole camp studied it. No keyhole. No hinge Aldric could find. He ran his fingers along the seams and found no seam at all. The metal was cold and smooth as ice. He did not know this box. He had never owned it. Yet someone had buried it under his tower, and now he wanted it open. Aldric tried a chisel first. The blade skipped off and left no mark. He tried a spell of unbinding, three words his master taught him. The box drank the magic and stayed shut. Sweat ran down his neck. Faelan crouched nearby, red braid over one shoulder, turning a spent arrow in their fingers. They watched Aldric fail with a flat, patient look, the same look they had given him when he admitted he had no gold. "You've cut yourself twice," Faelan said. "The box hasn't noticed." Sylvra sat on a fallen beam, silver hair catching the light, eyes half shut. They said nothing. They rarely did. But they were counting under their breath, the way they always counted, and Aldric knew they had already judged him useless at this. He wiped his hands. "Then we need muscle. Not magic." He looked down the slope, toward the town roofs in the valley. "There's a smith down there. A big one. Arms like tree roots. If any man can crack this, it's him." Faelan and Sylvra traded a glance. "You want us to fetch him," Faelan said. "You're faster than me. And you know how to talk to strangers without setting fire to anything." Aldric pressed two silver buttons off his robe into Faelan's palm. "Pay him with these. Tell him there's more work after." Sylvra stood, slung their bow, and started down the slope without a word. Faelan followed. Aldric watched them shrink into the trees, then paced the wreck until the sun climbed high. They came back at dusk. Alone. "The smith wouldn't come," Faelan said. They tossed the silver buttons back at Aldric's feet. "But he told us why the box won't open." Aldric's stomach tightened. "Why?" "He knew the shape of it. Said sky-keepers used boxes like that to hold cracked shards too dangerous to carry loose." Faelan crouched and set a hand on the cold iron. "He said one sits in the old keep across the valley. Sealed the same way. And inside it, they trapped a piece of a broken crystal." Sylvra finally spoke. "A grey piece." Aldric stared at the box. He had sent them for a man to force it open. Instead they had brought back the truth. The shard he had been digging for was not in the rubble at all. It was locked inside this box, and the only key lay in a keep he had never entered.