The buildings gave off an ominous feeling, and even Squishy seemed to be looking around with worry in his eyes.
“Maybe we should go home and tell Auntie about this.” Addie tried. But no, she knew it was just an idle suggestion. She had more determination than that. She didn’t want to come all this way just to give up.
Squishy looked up into her eyes, and Addie sighed. She knew that look. “You’re right. We can’t just stop now. Can you keep following the trail?”
“I never stopped.”
“Good, let’s go.”
They continued on the broken-down road, and more buildings gradually came into sight. It was possible these ruins connected up to Mr. Owlcharge’s main town, and that was Addie’s first assumption, but the further down they went, the less certain of that guess Addie became. She didn’t see any evidence that this crumbling ruin connected to Mr. Owlcharge’s town. She wouldn’t have even known the two places were related if the stonework hadn’t matched the same style as the town.
A cool breeze drifted out between the buildings and crawled up the back of Addie’s neck, forcing her to shiver. She rubbed at her neck, trying to wipe away the unpleasant feeling it left behind. Her feelings bled over into the bond, and she watched as Squishy lowered his ears against his skull in reaction. Without turning his head, she saw his little eye glance up at her from an angle. “Is this location really so dangerous? Shall I scout the area for you?”
Addie didn’t like the idea of her little protector wandering away by himself where he couldn’t easily protect her. Addie shook her head viscerally at the idea, “No, let’s stay together.”
A crunching sound drifted down to Addie’s ears, and she looked back up at the rooftop with the birds. There, one of the ravens was tearing into a piece of meat with its talons and scarfing it down mostly whole. It looked directly into her eyes the entire time.
“Let’s just hurry up and follow the trail,” Addie said as her pace quickened.
Squishy didn’t follow immediately, with his gaze also on the roof ravens once again. She ushered him out of his trance with a few soul prods to get him moving. “Let’s go,” she repeated.
“Agreed.” Squishy hurried back up to Addie, then took the lead once again as they followed the scent trail.
A few more steps up the road, Addie saw a hoofprint in one of the many mud puddles forming within the stone road. It was small, perfectly sized for the fawn, but not nearly big enough to have come from its mother. Besides, the fawn’s mother hadn’t ever left hoof prints behind before.
She pointed it out to Squishy, who nodded his head, but otherwise continued them on the trail.
Maybe the swamp had already reclaimed most of these ruins, and this single road was all that was left. The only buildings were on either side of the road, most of them looking like houses, but a few might have once been shops, and one even looked like it could have been an inn or tavern a bit ahead. Addie had only seen one of those before though, so she wasn’t sure.
Most of them were just made of crumbling stone. The tavern did too, it just also had wooded boards across its windows, something Addie found completely out of place, especially since they weren’t rotting. They didn’t even look old. So when Squishy turned his body and started leading them closer to the tavern, Addie wasn’t too surprised. Someone must have put the boards there otherwise they would be rotten or crumbling just like the rest of this small town.
Squishy led them up to the doorway, which was also boarded up. The boards had been placed so tightly together, that Addie couldn’t so much as squeeze a finger between them. Since this place was boarded up so securely, Addie wondered how black cloak got inside.
Squishy stopped at the barrier and turned his head up to look at Addie. “How do we proceed, my lady?”
Addie put her hands up against the board, confirming her earlier suspicion. There was no getting past this with her strength alone. She didn’t have to tell Squishy her plan, he felt the magic in their soul churning just as much as Addie did. One moment, they were behind the barricade, and the next, they were in Realmspace. Addie took another step forward, and then she and Squishy let the magic fall apart, forcing them both back into reality and beyond the boarded-up doorway.
The tavern was pitch black inside, no wonder with all the windows and the door boarded up. Addie quickly swept the room with her spatial sense, targeting it outward from herself in a cone. Other than some crumbling stone tables, the entire lower floor was empty.
Something light, maybe a spider web, brushed against Addie’s exposed shoulder, causing her to idly brush it off herself. The moment her fingers made contact with the object, it burned the back of her fingers and stung as it fell down off her shoulder onto the floor. The burning feeling caused her to jump away in pure instinct, as well as suck on her poor fingers.
She glanced at her fingers, and it was too dark to see how bad the burn was, but she had been pretty quick to move her fingers away so it probably wasn’t too bad. She angled her head down to the left to look at what had hurt her and saw a pale white, nearly ghostly purple, feather glowing on the ground.
Now on high alert, Addie swept her spatial sense through the room again, this time including the ceilings in her search.
Nothing. It was still just an empty room.
Addie moved to pick up the feather, then she thought better of it. It might burn her again. Instead, she swept the room one last time, if for no other reason than to ease her mind. It was still empty of anything alive, but there was an area in the back of the tavern with a staircase: one leading down and one leading up.
Since they were soul-bound, it was easy to tell Squishy everything she saw. After that, she asked, “Does the trail go up or down the stairs?”
“One goes up, and the other down. I suspect Black Cloak is upstairs since the blank scent trail follows there, but perhaps the fawn is somewhere else. I don’t smell it in this building at all. I do smell something much more sinister, I’m afraid. There are children in this building, down the stairs.”
No fawn? Maybe, she had really already saved him the other day. She hadn’t heard his cries for help again, after all. Maybe, black cloak had followed the fawn out to the clearing from these ruins just by chance. And she and Squishy were just following the trail backward. That would make more sense, especially since she didn’t think the Impossible Deer mother would have let her baby off on his own again after that.
The order of events was starting to match up in Addie’s mind, now. Perhaps, black cloak stayed in this ruin, and the fawn happened to be nearby one day. He followed the fawn out to the clearing and attacked it there. After Addie came, he ran back to his hideout in the ruins. That explanation would explain the scent trails, at least. It would also explain why Addie didn’t hear the fawn calling for help anymore. Perhaps he was still safe with his mother at this very moment.
That still left the other problem. How many children were in the building, and could Addie help them without getting into danger herself?
She had three options here, in her mind. She could run away, and try to tell Mr. Owlcharge or Auntie about the ruins. But if she did that, what if black cloak ran away or hurt the children while she was gone? She dismissed this option right away.
Another option was to go down the stairs and help the children immediately. Addie liked this idea because she knew how scary it was to be trapped and have dangerous magic threatening her. Sometimes, she still dreamed about Christena’s ritual, except in her dreams, it was a real ritual and not just a fake illusion.
The last option was to go straight up the stairs and deal with black cloak before helping the children. If she did this, it meant a lot of risk to herself, but it also might mean that no more children would be hurt by black cloak again.
“What do you think, Squishy?” Addie spoke telepathically, so she wouldn’t have to make any sound. It made her scrunch her face up in concentration since she still didn’t use this technique too often.
“I believe we should make haste and attack black cloak. Always go for the throat. Saving the children now will only force him to find new ones. Besides, I like not the idea of leaving behind a future enemy.”
Addie still preferred saving the children first, but that was just her heart speaking. Logically, she also agreed with Squishy.
“I don’t want to kill him,” Addie said. “There has to be another way. What if we take away his magic?”
“I know not such a technique, and I don’t believe Christena has taught you hers yet, either. Even so, Christena’s soul-dampening ability is only temporary, something she has to constantly maintain focus on. It would be impermanent, such a solution.”
Squishy always listened to their lessons better than Addie did. If anyone remembered Christena’s words, it would be Squishy.
“What if we tie him up and take him to Auntie?” Addie tried. She had never killed someone before and she didn’t think she could do it. She didn’t want Squishy to do it, either.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps he will use his magic to annihilate us while we try to bind him.” Addie wasn’t quite sure what annihilate meant, but she got the gist of it through the feeling of total defeat that Squishy pushed through the bond alongside the word. He must have been learning new words with Christena.
Addie frowned. Whatever choice they made, it wouldn’t be perfect. She did have another idea, though. One she thought might be much more likely to succeed than tying him up with something would be.
After opening the door to one of the rooms upstairs, Addie’s first thought was that they got lucky. Someone was lying down on the floor in a pile of furs, completely asleep. That gave her a big advantage.
With a questioning glance over to her partner, Squishy nodded his head, confirming this was black cloak.
Without any further delay, Addie walked up to the sleeping man and got a closer look at him. She recognized this man. It was the same guy who had bothered Mr. Owlcharge right after she got her vanilla ice cream. Now that she knew this guy was black cloak, it soured her memory of the otherwise fun-filled day. Back then, he had been bothering Mr. Owlcharge about helping out with something, but Mr. Owlcharge had told him to go to the community meetings just like everyone else. She remembered him so strongly because he had been wearing a black cloak on an otherwise hot summer day.
Addie had to resist the urge to hit herself for not realizing it sooner. No one walked around with black cloaks during the day, and this guy had been doing it for a while now, multiple times even. Now that she could see his face, she was quite certain he wasn’t a pigling. Sen was right from the beginning. His hair shined due to the grease, and his messy black hair complemented his patchy unshaven face. He also smelled really bad. Way worse than Addie smelled after she had been lost in the forest. She wanted to plug her nose, but couldn’t since she needed both hands.
Next came the hard part. Tiptoeing here was fairly easy since the floor was made of stone. Wood was way worse, and you always had to watch out for creaking. Stone was easy, she just had to put her feet down gently. She had done this tons of times snooping around at home without getting caught.
Once she was close enough, she kneeled down right next to the man and ever so gently, ever so slowly, put both of her hands hovering just above his chest. She was going to dive into his soul shell.
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https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/82948/whispers-from-realmspace
