My gaze lifts, scanning rooftops, windows, alleyways. For a heartbeat I see nothing.
Then movement flashes at the brink of the clearing, going into the woods.
A figure disappears around the corner of a narrow street, cloak snapping behind them.
“Did you see that?” I ask sharply.
Ysoria turns, but the street is already empty.
My pulse quickens. Instinct screams at me to pursue but instead I turn back toward the forge.
“I need to check on Roseth.”
I do not wait for Ysoria’s response. I move quickly across the square, my mind racing with possibilities I refuse to name.
Inside, the forge glows warm and bright. Roseth stands at the workbench, humming again.
Relief floods me so powerfully that it leaves me dizzy.
She looks up and smiles. “You were gone longer than I expected.”
“I ran into someone from my past,” I say.
Her expression softens immediately with concern. “Is everything alright?”
I want to say yes.
I want to protect this moment just a little longer. Instead I step closer and brush a stray lock of hair from her cheek. “It will be.”
Her smile returns, bright and trusting.
The bell chimes softly overhead and then the sound stops abruptly. The sudden silence crashes over me like cold water. The absence of resonance feels wrong. It defies explanation, like a heartbeat vanishing mid-beat.
Roseth frowns, looking toward the rafters. “That’s strange. The wind hasn’t?—”
I am already moving.
The bell’s presence has been a constant hum at the edge of my senses since the day it was forged. Now there is nothing.
Only silence.
Something has gone terribly wrong.
9
ROSETH
The silence in the forge feels wrong.
Not quiet nor peaceful but wrong.
I stand in the middle of the workshop staring up at the empty beam where the bell should be hanging, my hands trembling so badly I press them flat against the workbench just to steady myself. For a few seconds my mind refuses to accept what my eyes are showing me, as though if I blink enough times the bell will reappear and this will dissolve into some ridiculous misunderstanding.
It does not reappear.
The rope still hangs there, gently swaying in the draft from the open window. The knot has been cut cleanly. Not frayed. Not broken. Cut.
Someone took it.
