After saying something so deep priest walk away to some dark hall, we both started waling slowly and entered for our search
The air outside the church was damp, heavy with the scent of moss and forgotten prayers. Noah trailed behind James, his boots crunching against the gravel.
The old priest's words still clung to his ears
she came here once, many years ago… quiet, thoughtful, but never returned.
That single memory was all the priest could offer them. Nothing more. No clue, no direction. Just a fragile echo of Elenor's existence.
James adjusted his coat, his jaw tightening as he pushed open the creaking door. The church groaned as if resenting their intrusion. A rush of stale air, dust, and the faintest trace of incense long faded engulfed them.
Noah paused at the threshold, his hand brushing the frame. His chest felt unbearably heavy.
She stood here once… maybe walked across these stones, maybe even touched these very pews.His throat tightened, but he forced himself to step inside.
The interior was dark, the only light filtering through fractured stained glass, colors scattering like broken promises across the cracked floor. Vines crept through shattered windows. Wooden pews lay collapsed in heaps, their edges blackened by time and damp. The altar, stripped bare, leaned forward as though in mourning.
Noah's thoughts slipped into the past without permission.
Five years ago.
Elenor, seated in the garden, her hair pinned loosely as the autumn wind toyed with it. She had been writing furiously in her notebook, her lips moving silently with the rhythm of her thoughts. He remembered standing there, pretending not to stare, yet memorizing the furrow of her brow and the delicate way she chewed the end of her quill. She had looked up once, caught his gaze, and smiled
that rare, disarming smile that stripped him of words.
Now, inside the church, that memory struck him like a cruel jest. She had left, and with her went the light.
i saw master noah standing there drowning in ghosts.
I tap on his shoulder, my lord let's search there..
Noah clenched his fists but said nothing. He followed James deeper into the nave, the two of them moving through debris as if walking through the ribs of a carcass.
James's POV now unfolded, his thoughts guarded, sharp.
Lady left us. She chose silence over explanation. For years, we all tried to bury it, convinced ourself it no longer mattered. And yet, here we are , crawling through ruins for her. Noah may not see it, but lady Elenor's shadow has never loosened its hold on me either.
He paused near the altar, staring at the ruined cross that hung precariously. He imagined lady Elenor standing there, whispering her doubts into the silence, writing her endless words, feeding her relentless mind with the sorrow of this broken place.
"She would have liked it here," James muttered under his breath.
Noah turned sharply. "What do you mean?"
James's eyes hardened. "This place is abandoned, desolate, tragic. It mirrors her heart."
The silence that followed was thick, only broken by the caw of a crow perched high above the rafters.
Noah moved toward a small side chamber, its door barely hanging by the hinges. He pushed it open, revealing a crumbling library of sorts shelves stripped bare, books reduced to ash and mold. He bent down and picked up a scrap of parchment. The ink was smeared, illegible, but for one faint word: 'suffer.'
He stared at it until the letters blurred.
"James…" His voice was a whisper. 'She *was* here. She must have been. Look.!!!!
James approached, taking the fragment in his hand. He examined it with that calculating gaze of his. "Or it belonged to some forgotten soul before us. Don't turn ashes into hope."
Yet even as he said it, James folded the parchment carefully and slipped it into his coat pocket.
They searched for hours, the church echoing with their footsteps, but no further trace appeared. Only emptiness, only silence.
When they finally stepped outside again, dusk had begun to bleed into the sky. Noah leaned against the cold stone wall, his heart pounding with exhaustion and yearning.
"She's alive,"he said, his voice raw, almost pleading. "I can feel it.'
James looked at him with unreadable eyes, then at the horizon where the last light clung desperately to the clouds.i don't want to see young lord suffering again so I replied
"Alive or not," I said slowly, "the lady Elenor we once knew is gone. What remains of her… will not forgive us for seeking her."
The wind stirred, carrying with it the faint toll of a bell from far away. It sounded like mourning.