The tower's air was colder than normal. Each step Ashen took sent a low tremor through the floor, the old stone carrying sound like a mouth unwilling to keep secrets.
Marrec struck his torch against the wall until the flame blazed alive. The light painted the interior in restless orange, throwing jagged shadows over the carvings that crawled along the walls.
Talia tilted back her head. "These… aren't just cracks. Look."
Ashen drew nearer. The scorch marks in the wall were no accidents. They twisted in precise spirals, looping into patterns that set the eye on alert if stared into for too long. Not lettering. Not exactly art either.
Marrec frowned. "Some villager come here with a chisel?"
He moved his head. "No. This is older. Much older." His hands waved over the stone, but did not come in contact. Some sort of instinct prohibited him from.
They ascended higher, the stairs curving like the inside of a shell. The light from the torch was now left behind, silencing the upper portions of the tower. Ashen's boots slipped once on the smooth steps, and for a moment, he shuddered with the feeling that a hand grasped his arm —Talia's. She yanked back immediately as though embarrassed by the motion.
You should watch yourself," she whispered.
Ashen looked at her profile in the dancing light. The tension in her voice was not just about the tower. There was something else, something that dogged her even beyond these halls. But all he did was nod.
The atmosphere became dense upon the landing. A hum noise lingered in the silence. Not wind, nor stone creak. Breathing. Marrec raised his torch higher, illuminating a broad chamber in which the wall symbols all met in one that was etched in the floor. The spiral appeared to swoop downward, as if the ground curved in.
Talia moved back. "I don't… like this place."
Ashen crouched beside the spiral's periphery. Something was amiss with it, not only in the form, but in the light's reluctance to caress it. His notebook felt heavier in his grip. He nearly opened it, nearly attempted to draw the spiral, yet something in him shrank back. If he committed this form to text, to pen, he feared that it would follow him outside this tower.
The noise again. That breathing. Nearer this time.
Marrec cursed under his breath and held the torch more tightly. "Tell me you heard that."
Ashen rose gradually. "We are not alone."
The shadows shifted. Smoke appeared to crawl up the walls initially, yet when the torch moved the mist curled back, slid into crevices between stone. Not fog—not something dense enough or white enough to obscure—but something thinner, darker, as though the tower exhaled.
Talia took a stumbling step back,almost into Ashen. "We should go."
He longed to comply. Each part of him shouted to back away from the spiral, to take a stroll into the night and leave it all behind. But his eyes stayed on the wall symbols again, the way that they appeared to glow dully, as if alive.
Whatever this site did possess, it wasn't simply ruin.
Ashen gripped the notebook. His hand trembled, but he forced it to stay still. "No. Not yet."
The breathing sounded again—more loudly, more ponderously, as if the tower was waking.