Aldric Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

Aldric climbed back up the narrow stairs with the bone pendant cold against his chest. The upper door gave when he pushed — unlocked now, when it should not have been. He stepped out into the night air and stopped. Cyrus stood waiting beside the tower wall, hands loose at his sides, his face set in a way Aldric had never seen on him before. Not surprise. Not worry. Just the steady, tired look of a man who had already known what Aldric would find down there. Cyrus pulled a small book from inside his coat and held it out. The pages were swollen, edges burned by frost, the ink half eaten by damp. Aldric took it. He saw rough sketches of the lower door, the stair count, the blast door marked H. Beside them, in Cyrus's own careful hand, were the words: trap set, do not let him go down. The date at the top was three weeks old. Aldric closed the book. He looked at his friend and felt the last warm thing in his chest go cold. "How long have you been working for her," he said. Cyrus did not answer. He did not have to. Aldric pushed the journal back into Cyrus's hands, stepped past him, and walked into the dark alone. He passed the low stone bench by the wall where Cyrus had been waiting. Papers were stacked there, weighted with a cup. Aldric did not stop to read them. He kept the pendant on. He kept the name in his head. His friend was gone, his mother was closer than he had known, and the door marked H was still shut behind him. But now he knew the shape of the trap, and who had drawn it. He would have to search alone from here on. Beyond the bench, the ground rose into a low ridge of packed ice, its overhang throwing a long shadow toward the tower door. Aldric saw the prints in the snow there — Cyrus's boots, planted deep, waiting hours. From that spot a man could watch the door without being seen. Aldric stood in the prints a moment. Then he stepped out of them and kept walking. The name behind the door was still his. The trap had closed on one friendship, not on him.