Ash's Arc

Chapter 3 of 6

Ash walked the path back through the trees. The tower rose ahead, weathered stone with a purple roof and vines climbing its cracked sides. Runes ringed each level, glowing faint against the dark. The stranger had sent her here. But the stranger had given no reason. Ash stood in the foyer and listened. Nothing moved. She had a place and no clue what to do in it. She climbed the stairs and searched. Empty rooms. Dust on the sills. She pressed her hands to the runes, but they gave back only cold stone. She called no name. She had learned that lesson at the market. Still, the silence here felt like a locked door with no key. By dawn she was angry. "You sent me back for nothing," she said to the empty air. She went outside and sat by the stone lantern near the path. It squatted low, moss on its worn edges, its hollow center dark. She had placed the envelope inside it once. That was how the shark had first appeared. She stared at the lantern. The stranger had drawn a shape in the air she did not understand. Now she wondered if the shape had meant this. Ash pulled the envelope from her coat. The wax was cracked wide now. She looked at the lantern's hollow window. Last time she had put the whole letter in. Maybe the letter was not the offering. Maybe the answer was. She tore a thin strip from the envelope's edge and laid it inside the stone. The lantern glowed. Light poured out and pooled on the ground, and the shark rose from it. Its grey body turned in the air, marked with pink and blue runes that pulsed. Its purple eyes fixed on her. It had guarded her since the beginning. Now it waited, silent, as if it already knew her question. "The stranger sent me here," Ash said. "But there was nothing. No word. No sign." The shark drifted close. The runes along its side brightened, then shifted into new marks she could read. Ash leaned in and spoke them aloud. "The recipient forgot their voice here. In this tower. They will remember only when the one who carries the letter names the day they lost it." Ash sat back. The stranger had not sent her chasing empty silence. The stranger had sent her to learn where the silence began. The letter's true owner had lost their voice inside these walls. To give it back, Ash had to find out how. The shark's light faded. The lantern went dark. Ash stood, the torn envelope in her hand, and looked up at the tower's glowing runes. The empty rooms were not empty of story. Somewhere in this stone, a voice had gone missing. She had a new thread to pull, and it led up the stairs.