Arthur had a sealed envelope in his hand and the feeling of impending doom like a bad, heavy hat he couldn't take off. The wax bore a sigil he half-recognized from the manor's old books and the whispered tales at the tavern: a broken hourglass cradled by a star. The mark of Lumosys — the god of space and time — if the old stories were to be trusted, which they rarely were until they weren't.
He could hear his heart, not because it was loud but because it seemed to carry its own weather system. Somewhere in his ribcage a drumbeat said: read it. The rest of the world said: don't read it. Both sounded equally convincing.
The stranger — the armored man — stood with stoic patience like someone who had walked ten miles and then decided to act casual. His armor creaked softly when he shifted. Scars crossed his face in faded white lines. He carried the smell of smoke and rain, like a road that never stopped moving.
"I'm called Garran," he said finally, voice rough like gravel. "I was your father's— friend, comrade, something not small and not polite. When Aldren fell, he asked me to watch over Grayfall. If his son survived, I was to give him this."
Arthur's fingers closed around the envelope until the paper crinkled. "Why me? Why not someone else? Why not a duke or— or a wizard? I'm a mess, I'm not even—"
"You're alive." Garran's eyes were steady. "That's reason enough, lad."
Arthur made an soundsomething that tried to be gratitude and looked like a hiccuped sneeze.
Evelynn watched quietly from behind, face pale but composed. Lily clutched at her skirts like an anchor. Leon stood like a statue, coiled and vigilant. Seraphine had slid a chair nearer, interest sparking like a candle; the merchant heiress loved secrets that smelled of profit. Ella sat awkwardly on a bench, hands folded, cheeks flushed after yesterday's bread lesson and apparently unable to look away now.
Arthur's hands trembled. He sat down because a sudden urge to faint flared up again; sitting felt safer than standing, and he owed himself that tiny mercy.
"Read it," Garran said. "But - don't be a fool. Your father wrote plainly. But there are parts better understood after coffee. Or after a few deep breaths."
Arthur wanted coffee. He wanted naps. He wanted to return to an accounting job where problems solved themselves by emails rather than ruined kingdoms by mornings. But he also had a letter from the dead man who'd been buried under a mound of dirt not long ago. That felt important. Or at least heavy.
He slit the seal with a butter knife he borrowed from the dining table — dramatic? Maybe. Practical? Definitely not. The wax cracked with a soft pop and then the scent of old ink unfurled like a small, tired fog.
Inside was a folded sheet, handwriting cramped and direct. Arthur read aloud because his voice felt less alone that way, even though his throat quivered.
"Arthur — if this is in your hands then the gods have been too careless with their plans. You are my son if only by name, and more than that in all the ways that bend a man I cannot teach from beyond.
I have no illusions. A man named Halden Craymore will covet what lies beneath our land. He will smile like a man who eats peaches and then forgets the pit is still in his teeth. Do not trust him.
There is a shrine beneath the old elm ring. Do not go alone. There is a mechanism inside, something old and misaligned. It hums at night when the moon is crooked. I don't know what it was meant for beyond the first fire, but it is dangerous. If you must touch it, touch it like an engineer—measure, test, don't guess.
If things go wrong, trust Leon. If things go better than wrong, trust Ella for bread, and Seraphine for coin, and Aeloria if she comes for sense. Love your mother. Keep Lily alive. — Aldren"
The words hit like cold water and a slow warmth — like being doused and comforted at once. Aldren knew things. Aldren gave practical guidance (measure, test, don't guess). Aldren believed in Leon. Aldren had a sense of humor in the line about Craymore and peaches. It felt like the dead man winked at him across the divide.
Arthur swallowed hard, voice wobbling as he finished. "He… knew. He knew about the shrine."
Garran nodded. "Aldren found the entrance when the scouts opened the ridge during a summer push. Craymore wanted it. Your father tried to keep it secret but — the world sees what it wants."
Seraphine leaned forward, eyes glinting. "A mechanism? Magnificent. If this is Lumosys tech — even traces — we could sell the knowledge to academies, or use it to improve caravans. Imagine portals—no, not yet. But stabilization circuits. Wealth."
Arthur blinked. "Sell? My father's shrine—sell it? No."
"It's not yours by law, Lord," Seraphine said softly. "It's an asset. Think of the village—grain shipments, safety. I propose we—"
"No," Evelynn interrupted, gentle, steel in her voice. "Not for sale. Not for trading children's meals."
Seraphine's smile tightened. "Emotion is impractical, Lady Evelynn."
Evelynn's back stayed straight. Arthur reached for the letter again. "Dad said don't trust Craymore," he repeated dumbly. "He didn't say anything about merchants."
Seraphine gave him a look like a mathematical problem solved itself. "Because merchants know value. Nobles know title. Your father's warning was about force, not commerce. You can accept help without selling your soul. It's a partnership."
Arthur wanted the partnership. He wanted bread and coin and someone else to make the hard decisions. He also had this selfish, squirming feeling that some things should remain sacred, private, and boring. The ruins were boring and dangerous. He wanted them locked and maybe studied for centuries by polite scholars in fancy robes. He didn't want them auctioned.
Leon stepped forward, jaw tight. "No one touches the ruins without me present," he said. It wasn't a question. It wasn't even polite.
Seraphine's eyebrow rose. "You don't command armies yet, young hunter."
Leon's gaze didn't waver. "Then I'll die trying."
Arthur felt oddly proud and panicked at once.
Garran made a small sound, like a dry laugh swallowed. "Bravery is fine. But be careful — many die with braver faces."
That night the ruins hummed. Arthur woke from a dream of gears rotating in the wrong direction, of time folding on itself like a map left in the rain. He could feel a small pressure push against the windows like a sigh, like earth trying to remember its own name.
"Something moved," Leon whispered when he found Arthur in the hall. He smelled faintly of pine smoke and sweat.
Arthur nodded. "The letter said it hums when the moon is crooked. The moon—" He checked his wrist where a crude calendar was scratched. "It's past new by three nights, but—it's not the moon so much. It's the mechanism. I can feel something… wrong."
Leon's jaw clenched. "We should seal off the forest. Patrol. I'll bring the men."
Arthur wanted to agree but a small, terrified voice said: you can't order men into danger based only on a feeling. So he suggested: "Measure first. I'll go with Garran. Not alone. I'll measure. I'll test. I'll not guess."
Garran offered a slow nod. "The old man wanted precision. I know where the entrance sits. I can show you the way. But no heroics, boy. You are not on a stage."
They took lanterns though twilight had not yet fully fallen. A small party — Garran, Leon, Arthur, and two steady soldiers. Evelynn insisted on staying inside; Seraphine's attendant left two small boxes of supplies on the threshold with a look that was hard to read; Ella brought wrapped bread and a cloth with herbs because she was polite and good.
The forest welcomed them like a room someone forgot to clean: leaves whispering, a damp smell, roots that tried to trip anyone not paying attention. The path narrowed where the old elm ring stood, a circle of trees that had lost more limbs than they had leaves. The air was colder, and Arthur's breath came out in white puffs.
Garran pointed down into a small hollow beneath one of the old stones, a seam in the earth the size of a door. It looked like a hole. It looked like a mouth. It hummed like a refrigerator you shouldn't have plugged in.
Arthur's skin prickled. The lantern light showed stonework, not natural, the edges too straight, too worn by hands. There were carved grooves in the stone that at first looked like random scratches but then resolved into repeating patterns — circles within circles, intersecting like mechanical diagrams.
He set the measuring rod he'd begged Garran to let him borrow, a rough thing with ink lines, and he pressed the rod to the grooves. The wood vibrated minutely. The pattern seemed to hum in sympathy.
"Don't touch it hard," Garran warned. "It reacts."
Arthur nodded, heart thudding. He understood, in a way he didn't want to — ancient tech keyed to touch, to pressure, to direction. Lumosys was theorized to be a god of space-time, which was to say: machines that shouldn't exist, but did, and hated to be poked.
He should have retreated. The air was too thin here with meanings. But Aldren had written: measure, test, don't guess. He took a small probe from his pack — a length of metal, a crude tester — and pressed it into one groove.
The stone pulsed. The sound was not the hum of a machine but the intake of a beast. For a moment the world tilted like a ship in a sudden wave. The lantern flame shivered. A smell of ozone, of sparks and old rain, hit Arthur's nose.
Leon tightened his grip on his spear and moved instinctively between Arthur and the hollow.
Then, like a held breath released, the pulsing stopped. The air settled as though nothing had happened.
Arthur's hand trembled so hard his probe clattered to the ground.
"We should leave," Garran said. "And send for scholars, and barrels of water, and perhaps a priest who knows old rites."
Arthur wanted to shout back: we can't wait for scholars; Craymore will move faster than monks. He wanted to shout: we can't sell it either; some things are not for sale. He wanted to say a thousand things, and each felt both right and stupid.
Instead he wrapped his jacket tighter and muttered, "We seal it tonight. Put guards. No one in or out of the elm ring. And—" he swallowed—"Leon, you watch the men. Don't let anyone near. Not even Seraphine."
Seraphine might have been offended. She hid it behind a poker face. She left quietly with her boxes, and Arthur saw her fingers brush one of the small bottles she'd brought as if considering its worth.
He felt, in that moment, the full load of being a baron. Money, war, ruins, bread, little hands trusting him. It wasn't heroic. It wasn't cinematic. It was messy and awful and necessary.
He looked up at the sky. The stars were stubborn. The ruin breathed in quietly beneath the elm ring, and somewhere in its gears, time whispered.
Arthur put his hand on the old stone and promised under his breath, stuttering like a child: "I won't let them take this place. I won't let them take you." He didn't know if he meant the place, the ruin, his family, or the memory of a father he'd never known.
But promises, even shaky ones, were beginnings. And in the dark, beginnings had to be enough.