Ewan Greenwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 8

Sarge's torch would not leave Ewan alone. Each night he watched the man sit apart from the fire, the burnt old torch across his knees. Sarge sharpened it like a stake. He muttered about the spell-scripts in the cabin. Half the men now sat with him, not with Ewan. The band had learned to fight as one wall. Now it was cracking down the middle, and Ewan could feel the split widen every day. He needed to know what the scripts said, or the argument would never end. Callum found him at dawn, staring at the shed where the books were locked away. His brother set down a bundle of fresh-cut boards. "You can't read a word of it," Callum said. "Neither can I. But Aisling's kin can." He had ridden out and brought back a rider. "Her father's cousin. He knew the old script before any of us were born." The man dismounted slow. He was older, black, clean-shaven, in a worn orange cloak with fire in its dye. Seren Lyrin looked at the shed, not at Ewan. "So this is the house of ash you built," he said. "Show me these dangerous pages." Ewan unlocked the shed. He spread the cracked tomes and curling scrolls across a table. Seren traced the faded lines with one finger. He read for an hour without speaking. Ewan waited. Behind him, Sarge appeared in the doorway, torch in hand, his eyes hard. "These are not spells to kill," Seren said at last. "They are wards. Protections. Someone wrote these to shield a village from fire." He looked up. "The men who burned your homes did not follow this book. They broke it." Sarge spat on the floor. "Words are words. Burn them." He raised the torch toward the table. Ewan caught his wrist. "No. He read them true. These teach us how to guard, not how to kill." He held Sarge's arm until the old man's grip loosened. "If we learn the wards, we protect the next village before it burns. That is what we swore to do." Sarge wrenched free. He looked at the faces around the shed. Callum stood by Ewan. Seren stood by the books. The men who had followed Sarge said nothing. Sarge saw he stood alone now. He threw the torch to the dirt. "Then I'm done," he said. "I came to end magic, not to study it." He walked to his horse and rode east. Ewan let him go. Half his fear went with the man, and a hard fact stayed. The scripts were not poison. They were shields. Seren rolled a scroll and met his eye. "If you want to learn these wards," he said, "it will take weeks. And it will change what you hunt." Ewan picked up the fallen torch and set it down inside the shed. He had traded one loss for a harder truth.