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Chapter 10 - The Price of Knowing

The candle burned low, its weak flame bending as though trying to escape the room. Shadows trembled along the walls, each corner of the elder's hut seeming deeper, darker than they had been a heartbeat ago.

Kaelen sat stiff, hands clenched on his knees, his bow resting against the wall within reach. His throat was dry, his pulse quick. Yet he did not move, not when Elder Draven's eyes—those dim, clouded eyes every villager trusted—now gleamed faintly with silver beneath their veil of age.

Draven leaned upon his cane. His back bent like an old tree, but the air around him held weight, as though the space itself bowed to his presence.

"You say you want to know," the elder said softly, his voice still warm, still gentle—but with an edge beneath it now, cold as moonlit steel. "But knowledge is no gift, Kaelen. It carves as deep as it grants."

Kaelen swallowed. "If it will lead me to Garrick… I'll pay."

The elder's gaze lingered on him, patient, studying, weighing. Then, with a slow breath, Draven lowered himself into the chair opposite. His bones creaked, yet his movements were too precise, too deliberate, to be the weakness of age.

"You think it was a beast that took him."

Kaelen nodded, jaw tight. "I saw… something. A figure. The arrows vanished before they struck. It—" His voice faltered. "It shouldn't exist."

Draven's thin lips curved. "And yet it does."

Silence stretched between them. Outside, the village bustled faintly—children chasing one another in the dawn light, a hammer striking in the smithy, the call of a mother to her son. Ordinary sounds, safe sounds. None of them belonged to this room.

The elder reached to the table. His fingers brushed the edge of the cloth that half-covered the scroll. For a heartbeat, Kaelen thought he would pull it free, but instead Draven left it hidden, almost teasing.

"There are forces, Kaelen," Draven murmured, "woven into the bones of this land. Old forces. They sleep beneath our feet, they stir in the forests, they hide in the cracks of the world. To speak of them is dangerous enough. To pursue them…"

His eyes fixed on Kaelen, sharp and unyielding. "…is to walk where few return."

Kaelen forced himself not to look away. "Then teach me how to walk it."

A long silence followed. The elder's cane tapped once against the floor. Then, almost too softly to hear, he chuckled.

"Bravery," Draven said, "or desperation. It matters little. Both feed the same hunger."

He leaned closer, and Kaelen caught the faintest scent of herbs—sharp, bitter, masking something metallic beneath.

"You wish to know the truth? Then bring me three things. A shard of blackened wood from the forest's edge, where the old watchtower fell. A vial of blood, freely given from your own hand. And…" The elder's gaze sharpened. "…your silence. None in the village must hear a whisper of this."

Kaelen hesitated. Blood? Silence? What game was the old man playing? Yet when he thought of Garrick's torn vest, of the faceless shadow in the clearing, doubt hardened into resolve.

"I'll bring them."

The elder smiled. It was not cruel, not kind—it was the smile of a man who had waited a long, long time.

"Good. Then the moon will decide what you are worth."

When Kaelen left the hut, the morning sun should have warmed him. Instead, the air felt cold, his shadow stretching too long on the ground. He walked through Black Hollow's streets with careful steps, nodding to those who greeted him. None saw the bloodied vest tucked deep in his pack. None knew of the bargain struck in whispers.

Only Draven watched from the doorway, cane in hand, eyes hooded. To the villagers, he was simply the kindly elder seeing off a troubled hunter.

But in truth, he was measuring, calculating, weaving threads unseen.

Because every promise Kaelen made was another piece in the elder's design.

And Draven Noctis had no intention of letting death claim him—not yet.

The moon, pale even in daylight, hung above the village. Watching. Waiting.

And somewhere, deep in the forest, something shifted.

Something that had heard Kaelen's vow.

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