Page 6 of Eternal Thorns

“Wait here.” She disappeared into a back room, returning moments later with a cloth bundle. Inside were what looked like protective charms - dried herbs bound with red thread, small stones with holes bored through their centers, iron nails wrapped in leather.

“Take them,” she said when Silas reached for his coin purse. “Won't accept payment for these. You'll need them more than coin where you're going.”

“I don't understand.”

“No,” she said softly. “You don't. Not yet.” Her eyes flicked to the window, where darkness was falling fast. “Best stay in your rooms tonight. Don't answer if you hear knocking, no matter who it sounds like calling you.”

They took their leave from the tavern keeper, her warning about knocking in the night following them up the narrow stairs. The temperature had dropped sharply in the last hour, unusual for early winter. Silas pulled his cloak tighter as he crossed to the window, watching his breath fog against the glass.

“Getting colder by the minute,” Kai muttered, adjusting his own cloak. “Doesn't feel natural, does it?”

Silas didn't answer immediately. His attention had caught on the tree line visible in the fading light. Strange markings scarred the bark of several trees at the village's edge. They weretoo precise to be random damage - each pattern repeated with deliberate regularity, like words in a language he couldn't quite grasp. Time and weather had worn them down until they were barely visible, but something about them made the key against his chest grow colder.

“Those markings,” he said finally. “Do they look like wards to you?”

Kai joined him at the window, squinting into the gathering dark. “Hard to tell from here. But if they are, the question is - are they meant to keep something out?”

“Or something in,” Silas finished quietly.

“Yeah.” Kai lingered in the doorway. “Hey, Silas? Whatever's waiting at Thornhaven, whatever your father thinks he's punishing you with? We'll handle it. That's what friends are for.”

Something tight in Silas's chest loosened slightly. “Thanks, Kai.”

“Don't mention it.” Kai grinned. “Besides, this is way more interesting than my last job. Did involve less creepy forest vibes though.”

After Kai left, Silas sat on the narrow bed and pulled out the key. The engravings seemed to move in the candlelight, forming patterns that made his eyes hurt if he looked too long. Somewhere in the darkness outside, something howled - not quite wolf, not quite human.

Sleep proved elusive,and they set out again before dawn. The morning passed in tense silence as the path grew wilder, until finally, they crested a hill just as the sun began its descent toward the horizon. Silas pulled Midnight to a sharp halt, his breath catching in his throat.

Thornhaven Manor sprawled before them like a wound against the landscape. The estate's stone walls rose in sharp, severe angles, somehow both imposing and decaying. Gothic spires clawed at the darkening sky, and windows stared out like hollow eyes, their glass clouded with decades of neglect. But it wasn't the manor that made Silas's hands tighten on the reins.

Behind the estate, the Eldergrove loomed impossibly high. The ancient forest rose up like a wall of darkness, its uppermost branches seeming to scrape the clouds. Even in the remaining daylight, shadows pooled unnaturally deep between the trees. The boundary between forest and manor grounds was stark - cultivated land simply stopped, as if nature itself feared to encroach on the woods' territory.

“Well,” Kai said, his voice slightly higher than usual, “your father really knows how to pick a punishment, doesn't he?”

The key around Silas's neck suddenly flared with warmth, startling him. He pulled it out from beneath his shirt, finding the metal almost hot to touch. The engravings writhed across its surface faster than before, like agitated snakes.

“Shit,” Kai breathed, watching the key's movement. “That's not normal.”

“None of this is normal.” Silas tucked the key away again, trying to ignore how it pulsed against his skin. “Let's get this over with.”

They urged their horses forward along the overgrown drive. Dead leaves crunched beneath hooves, though Silas noticed there were fewer than there should be this late in the season. It was as if something had been gathering them up, keeping the path partially clear.

The manor's details emerged as they drew closer. Gargoyles perched along the roofline, their features worn smooth by time and weather. Ivy crawled up the walls in patterns too symmetrical to be random. The stones themselves seemedto absorb what little sunlight remained, making the building appear darker than it should.

A sudden explosion of movement made both horses rear. From one of the highest towers, a murder of crows erupted into the sky. Their cries echoed off the stone walls, multiplying until it sounded like hundreds of birds instead of dozens. The sound reverberated in Silas's chest, setting his teeth on edge.

“Not too late to reconsider,” Kai said, fighting to control his spooked gelding. “I hear the southern islands are lovely. Great weather, minimal cursed forests. Could be merchants or something.”

Part of Silas wanted to agree. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to run from this place of sharp angles and watching windows. The Eldergrove's presence pressed against his back like a physical weight, and he could have sworn he heard whispers carried on the wind.

But beneath the fear, something else stirred. The key burned against his chest, not painfully but insistently, like a question demanding to be answered. The manor, for all its gothic menace, called to something in his blood. This place had been waiting for him, he realized. Perhaps it had always been waiting.

“I have to know,” he said quietly.

“Know what?”

“Everything.” Silas dismounted, taking Midnight's reins in hand. “Why my grandmother gave me this key. Why no one lives here. Why the forest feels like it's watching us.”

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