Chapter 56. Whispers of Ash and Stone
The Mourhollow estate sat on the high ridge of one of the smaller of the three mountains, to the west, its more narrow black-slated towers draped in the usual mist that adorned the Raven Kingdom on a semi-permanent basis. The towers jutted out like sentinels carved from shadow.
The family's crest — a crescent moon angled just above a scroll — was long welded and adorned on the great iron gates that had patches of rust, which creaked when they opened. At Sephora's approach to the castle, there was no need to use the gate. She had flown directly down here at dusk, her feathers damp from the misty dew that clung to this evening's air, her heart weighed down by the memory of the forest's suffocating silence and some of the discussion her mother, Queen Nox had had with her.
The man of the hour, Corvin Mourhollow greeted his dear friend himself. He was dressed plainly for once, in a dark tunic belted with silver-looking spheres at the waist, his dark hair swept back from his brow. A boyhood friend, loyal and steady. Ever the reliable comfort, he smiled warmly as though nothing in the world could trouble him. It never seemed that it did.
"You're early," he teased. "I thought I'd have to send a search party when you didn't come round earlier on, last week."
With a forced small smile, Sephora was grateful for his lightness. "I needed a distraction. I hoped you might offer me one." It was a half-truth, but with wells of honesty to it.
"Always," he beamed, offering his skinny arm in jest. Their family was never one for fighting, always for reading and knowing. They had always stuck to the principle that you can fight all you want, but if you don't know how to fight? You can never win. Knowledge was their weapon, and pens were their swords... This is partially why many of the High and Mid noble houses forgot that they were even a noble family at all, and not well-to-do commoners.
The interior of Mourhollow was much as she remembered; it never seemed to change: endless corridors lined with relics, carved shelves heavy with codices, clay tablets sealed in glass, scrolls stacked in tall cases that seemed ready to topple at the faintest breeze. The house smelled of fresh ink mixed with old dust and something older. Perhaps the musk of parchment that had drunk time on end centuries.
Without deviating or hesitation, Corvin led her to his study — 'their study,' as he often called it whenever she visited. To him? She wasn't a princess; she was a dear, cherished friend. He cleared a place on the great oak table by brushing aside an intimidating stack of vellum covered in script.
"Okay, so I thought we might look into the Falcrest campaigns tonight," he said with a bubble of boyish and nerdy enthusiasm, "or the trade treaties your great-grandmother negotiated with the Great Eagle Clans. You always like those."
In her hesitation, Sephora's pale eyes drifted across the relics, her mind replaying the lifeless forest, the way the silence pressed against her skull like a hand. About the werewolf in her dungeon... 'How real could they be? The.. Dark Ones?' She thought.
Instead, she asked quietly, "Actually, Corvin… could you show me again the lore on those Dark Ones?"
He looked up, surprised, but not suspicious. "You've never taken much interest in those bogeymen," he said with a curious smile, "Was it my recalling of some ancient histories and theories, the other evening?"
"Perhaps I was wrong in thinking to dismiss them." It had been his stories, in that she was gratefuly, but it was everything combined with those, "The stories frightened me when I was little included werewolves, but the Dark Ones were... as you said, the bogeyman. I'd rather understand... as you like to say, than fear what may be in the shadows."
He studied her a moment; she was a 19-year-old harpy, and being afraid of the dark was uncommon for Raven. Thinking about it some more, it was okay to be afraid of what might be in the dark, especially with what he and his family guarded... what they knew. He then nodded. "Knowledge is as much protective armor as it can be a weapon, Sephora. I'll show you what I can."
From the shelves, he pulled a brittle scroll sealed in resin, etched with diagrams of very strange looking creatures, some half-human, some half-beast, some a mix of both. They looked horrific and unnatural. He handled the scroll with reverence. "This one dates to the Pact of Alpha Villhelm, when the Raven King and the Bloodhounds swore to hunt the Dark Ones to extinction. As from our conversation last night, that was five and a half thousand years ago, give or take. Few know the details anymore or have the scriptures preserved in some way or other." It was a boast in the most Mourhollow way thinkable, and it was impressive, Sephora had to admit. That scroll was indeed, very, very old.
Sephora leaned closer, her fingers itching to touch the parchment. "What were they?"
"No one agrees," Corvin admitted, unrolling it carefully. "Some said they were born of curses, others claimed they were once people who lost themselves to hunger. This one—" he pointed to a jagged drawing of a man with hollow eyes and wings of shadow "—calls them strigoi, the drinkers and consumers of life. Mindless in most telling's, actually the way that we generally talk about werewolves now fits, but others scrolls talk about those ones being... guided, in a way, by a few ancients who had… voices and wills of their own."
Her breath caught. The memory of the silent forest clawed at her chest. "And they were all destroyed?" Was it the case that...?
"Supposedly. The pact lasted generations. The Raven King, the Crimson Bloodhounds, even Ebonspire's line of wardens still remain the same blood-descended royals. They, we hunted the Dark Ones across continents." He smiled faintly, oblivious to the dread curling in her gut. "A rare moment of unity in history. By around 5 kings ago, from before your father, there were no more sightings. Just tales to frighten and shadows and shapes in the night. Nothing that would assume they were still here."
With something still tugging on the back of her mind that she couldn't quite place. Sephora's pale eyes lingered on the etched figure, the inky wings. She imagined the silence pressing down on an entire forest. Not a tale. Not anymore.
As Corvin continued happily, mistaking her intensity for academic fascination. "Most of the Mourhollow collection on them is too fragile to handle without training. My mother and father would have my wings if I let you touch half of it, but I can read them to you, if you'd like?"
"Yes," she whispered. "Please."
With that agreed, in the dim candlelight of the little Mourhollow study, he read aloud the oldest words he knew — stories of a time when the world itself had shivered, when even the raven harpies feared to take flight at night, when silence was a herald of things clawing their way back from ash and stone.
With a burning intensity, Sephora listened, trembling faintly but saying nothing. For the first time in her life, she found true comfort not in her sister's presence, nor her mother's protection, but in Corvin's voice, steady and unassuming, turning nightmare into history.
She did not tell him why she needed the knowledge.
Unfortunately, he did not see what she felt she could. The possibility of those very shadows gathering in her pale eyes as she leaned closer to the scroll as he spoke ancient horrors and tales aloud.