Prince Aelindor Silverleaf's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

They left the guardhouse at first light. Aelindor walked with his hand on an empty belt and his eyes on the road. Thornwick walked half a pace behind, staff tapping soft against the packed dirt. The trees along the path stood quiet. No birds. No wind through the leaves. Aelindor did not know what waited three days north, and he did not know what the tower would ask of him when he reached it. He knew only that walking blind had killed every cousin who tried this quest before him. "You have been to the tower," Aelindor said. It was not a question. "Once. From the ridge. I did not go down." Thornwick did not look at him. "Then tell me what is there." "Black water around the base. Roof half gone. Arrow slits with nothing behind them." Thornwick tapped the staff. "And frogs." "Frogs." "Bigger than dogs. Skin runs poison. They sit in the water and wait." He glanced at Aelindor's belt. "You have no blade." "I have four coins." "Keep them." Thornwick stopped in the road. He pressed his thumb to the staff and spoke three words Aelindor did not catch. A green shoot climbed the wood and split into a short, straight branch as long as a forearm. Thornwick snapped it off and held it out. "Blackthorn. It will take poison better than steel. Aim for the throat pouch, not the eye. The eye is armored." Aelindor took the branch. It was warm. "There is also the door," Thornwick said. "The frame is set with runes. Old ones. Do not touch the frame. Step through the middle or do not step through at all. A prince from your grandfather's time put his palm on the stone and left his hand behind." Aelindor felt the road tilt under him. "Anything else." "The floor inside is rotten. Boards split. Blood in the grain that never dried. Walk the walls, not the middle." Thornwick started walking again. "That is what I saw. That is what I will tell you. Past the tower I will not go." Aelindor followed. He turned the blackthorn in his hand and counted what he had been given. A weapon. A door he could not touch. A floor he could not trust. It was not a map, but it was more than his cousins had carried. At the top of the next rise, Thornwick stopped and looked north. Aelindor followed his eyes. A thin figure in black robes moved along the road below them, a full day ahead already, staff dark against the pale dust. The figure did not turn. One sleeve hung heavy at his side. "He is faster than I thought," Thornwick said. Aelindor closed his hand on the blackthorn. He was no longer walking blind. He was walking second.