Page 138 of Fortress of Ambrose
Perusing the halls of Dlaminaugh usually felt like walking a brutally fragile tightrope. But this time she admired the way the towering ceilings had new inscriptions in Latin along each doorway. The glass walls that wrapped around the estate provided sweeping views in nearly every direction. Tonight, everything glowed beneath the moonlight. This place was magnificent. She wandered, awestruck, allowing herself to imagine ways she could change things if she wanted. She stopped abruptly on the first floor near the kitchens when she spotted shadows. Not nearly as manyas the usual few dozen who stuck to her side and roamed the halls. There were ten or so ancestors slinking back and forth past a window that led to the ice gardens and graveyard.
She called to them. But they didn’t acknowledge her.
They were fixated on something outside.
She pressed her nose to the glass. The night was silent. The ice garden’s sculptures of the gods were hardly discernible from the fresh blanket of snow.
“What is it?” she said, watching the foggy glass for a response. But the dead ignored her. At least she’d found some of them. Maybe more would be visible come morning. She almost turned to go when something shifted in the forest. She wiped the window with her sleeve and peered again.
The trees were swaying.
And they glowed with the faintest light.
“The trees,” she asked the dead. “Do you know what’s going on with the trees?” She watched for a written response.
Their silence made the hair on her arms rise.
“Well, I guess I’ll just have to find out for myself, won’t I?”
When she opened the door, icy air hit her face. The dead followed her. In some twisted way it was a relief. She crossed the courtyard, which ran through the garden, watching the rustling branches in the distance. When she reached the edge of the garden, she had no clearer vision of what was happening; her mind raced as she stared at the trees beyond the graveyard.
She shouldn’t be out here alone.
There was only one person she could talk to about this.
Nore’s fist hither mother’s door, and Isla answered by the third knock. She was fully dressed, with a scarf on her head.
“Can you hear them?” she asked. “The dead.”
“No. But I can’t find more than a dozen of them.”
“You can’t hear that?” Isla held her ears. “They’re somewhere, humming somberly. I was a Cultivator, but Audior magic was my sharpest gift. It never left me fully. I thought that’s why you’d come. That maybe the gift was strong in our line.”
Nore held her tongue. Her mother couldn’t help but wish some kind of magic on her. The débutante Lauren’s words were like a blanket, the hug from a friend she hadn’t realized she needed.
“Come with me. You have to see this.” She took her mother by the arm before she could disagree. But when they reached the window where she just was, the dead were gone. Nore pointed at the trees, still shuffling.
“Could it be wind?” her mother asked. But Nore pulled her mother outside into the cold.
“Something is in that forest.”
Her mother straightened her glasses and walked the length of the courtyard, stepping down onto the stone path that led to the ice gardens. Nore followed.
“That area used to be a graveyard as well. But it was uprooted and the trees were replanted forever ago.” They followed the path through the ice gardens, and Nore pulled her robe tighter over herself as she passed the gods’ glassy stares. The grave headstones on the ground were arranged in perplexing patterns around the gardens. She began reading the names. None of the last names were Ambrose.
“Who do these graves belong to?”
“Those close to the family.” Her mother fidgeted, moving closer to the building.
“Such as?”
“The priests’ extended families. Star pupils. Heir sires. Please, enough of this nonsense.” She glanced at the forest. “Back inside.”
Nore had always assumed the graves’ names that didn’t share her surname were from outstanding débutants or something.
“It’s stopped.” Her mother pointed at the still trees. Closer now, it was easier to see that the patch of unsettled trees were younger thanthe thick forest behind them, several feet shorter, baby trees against the taller conifers. The glow flickered before disappearing.
“We should really get inside,” Isla said, rubbing her arms.
