Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Seventy Six: Beneath the Castle

The stairs led interminably downwards, and grew colder as they descended. Nova shuddered and drew her blanket closer around her, thanking the gods that Nika had found her shoes to wear. Thorne's flickering light illuminated walls bare of ornamentation, and though the air smelled of age and disuse, the steps were worn smooth. She guessed they descended well into the centre of the hill on which Harkenn's castle sat, below even the crypt, perhaps.

Thorne's shadow runner had emerged from his hood and now rode on his shoulder, ears erect as her owner moved inexorably downwards. Nova wasn't claustrophobic, but the monotony of the narrow passage was starting to get to her by the time it opened out into a room. It wasn't a large room, more of an antechamber – another door led away into gloom on the opposite wall – but what had halted Thorne in his tracks were the walls. The stairs had been entirely unadorned, but the room they stood in was covered in murals. As the Unspoken boy brightened his light and held it aloft, Nova looked around at large depictions of crowned figures in chalky red pigments and faded blues. The walls had been treated with some kind of plaster and in patches it had fallen off, but they were remarkably intact.

"Nova," Thorne said, and though he murmured his voice bounced around the small chamber in an unsettling manner. She crossed over to where he stood, his light still up. On the wall in front of him was a large mural of a crescent moon with a dagger balanced between the points.

"That's the symbol," she said, needlessly and mostly out of surprise. She looked around, and her gaze snagged on the beckoning doorway. "I think we might find more answers in here."

Thorne followed as she went through it, his green light broken by the shadows of her legs. She moved to one side of him to allow the beam to fall on the room ahead, and felt her stomach turn.

"This is a tomb," Thorne said, "isn't it?"

Rows of dark stone plinths stretched away from them down the hall, and on each one was a coffin, also made of stone. Nova shuddered, not with cold this time. "Not the Harkenn tomb. This is older."

"I thought the Harkenns lived a ridiculous amount of time."

"They do, and there are a lot of them down in the crypt. Which means this is really old. Ancient. Perhaps from the time this world was first populated." She chewed on her lip. "It certainly predates the arrival of my people. I knew nothing of this."

"But if it's that old, how is it so well-preserved?" Thorne asked, though he didn't seem to expect an answer. "Comparable burial sites where I'm from are usually piles of rubble after so long."

"They've never been exposed to the elements," Nova suggested. "We are a long way beneath the castle now, I think. I doubt anyone comes down here anymore."

"Then why not just brick it over altogether?" Thorne started slowly down the row, looking at each coffin as he went, holding his light to the lids. "If you see that symbol again, let me know."

They both searched for a long while. Nova found the symbol on three coffins furthest from the entrance. On the opposite row, Jordan found two more. When they ran out of coffins to inspect, he ranged to a further corner of the room and let out a strangled yell.

"A Firebull," Nova said, joining him. The statue was an intricately rendered representation of the real thing, so lifelike that she didn't blame Thorne for yelling. It was worn with age, but at one point she could tell the eyes had been painted black.

"But why?" Jordan said plaintively. Ren jumped down from his shoulder and began sniffing around the statue's feet. "Why put one of these bastards in your tomb?" He went silent, thinking, and abruptly seemed to realise something. "These were early Nicts."