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“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Elise joked.
“I think we should stop in Old Rahvin. There’s likely to be shelter there, perhaps even an old fireplace that we might be able to put a safer conflagration inside.”
“If you say so, Hail.”
Hail extended her arm and wrapped her cloak around Elise. It made walking a little more awkward than usual, but it warmed Elise and it made Hail feel a little less guilty about having inadvertently led her friend into what would undoubtedly prove to be danger.
Old Rahvin was not a nice place. It was dilapidated and decrepit. There were a dozen houses all built in the old style with circular roofs and walls, and no windows at all. The inhabitants of this town had been simple and brutal, primitive folk. They were not at all like the modern people who knew how to build proper houses in the shapes of squares and with windows. Hail had never lived in such a construction.
“It feels haunted,” Elise shivered.
“Everywhere feels haunted this time of night,” Hail said.
“Not like this. There’s spirits here.”
Hail didn’t know about spirits. She knew about magic and she knew about potions, just enough of each to be dangerous. Spirits was a whole other sort of thing to know. She might have known about them, if Bryn hadn’t flung her bloody spell into the fire.
“This house looks the least ruined,” she noted, stopping in front of one particular building tucked up beneath a rocky outcropping.
Its roof was practically perfect. The stones hadn’t fallen down the way they had on most of the houses. It was very, very old, but the weather seemed to have somehow strengthened it over time rather than breaking it down.
“I don’t think we should go inside that one,” Elise replied. “It doesn’t feel good.”
“I think if it rains, it will feel better than the rest of them. Most of them have no roofs at all.”
“Maybe that’s what’s natural for an old, abandoned town. Maybe an old house with a roof is more suspicious than one without.”
“Maybe. Maybe we want to stay out of the strange, suspicious house in the strange, suspicious old town on the dark night awash in destiny.”
“Is it awash in destiny? It looks awash in spiders, probably.”
In the end, rain decided the matter for them. Big, heavy droplets started to splat from the sky with an unpleasant vigor, accompanied by a vicious wind which sent cold biting right through to their bones.
“It wasn’t cloudy minutes ago,” Elise frowned. “I could see the moon.”
“Well, it is now. And it is very wet.”
Hail grabbed Elise by the arm and dragged her inside the old house. There was no point squabbling and freezing to death. Spirits or not, they had to take care of their basic material needs.
“I’m uncomfortable with this,” Elise mumbled.
“Nobody asked you to come,” Hail reminded her. “This was my adventure, and you’re welcome on it, but I can’t promise it won’t be hard, and that there won’t be rain and cold and fires and spirits.”
There was a fire pit right in the middle of the house, where the rain was coming in, and where the smoke would go up once Hail set a fire there.
“Here,” Hail said, dropping her pack of possessions on the ground. “Go through that and find something to eat. Might help your spirits, and help stop you from thinking about other spirits. I’m going to set another fire, warm us up.”
“I don't think you should, Hail,” Elise said. “We can stand a little cold, and we’re not so very wet.”
Hail did not listen. She loved any opportunity to practice her magic, and this was a very sensible one.
“Hail, please.” Elise’s tone was a little desperate. Hail sighed inwardly. She knew she was going to be escorting Elise back up the mountain tomorrow, and she was glad for it. Elise was only going to slow her down, complain at every turn, and panic about silly things like spirits.
She pulled light from the darkness for the second time, felt it pulsing against her fingers and palms. There was no feeling like it. It was pure power. It started small at first, felt like something in her veins charging through her all the way from her toes right to the roots of her hair, like it came from the earth itself.
Magic always felt good. But it felt better than ever this time. Perhaps Elise was right. Perhaps this place was a location of power. How exciting. Nowhere in New Rahvin was a location of power, Bryn had seen to that one way or another. She didn’t know how, or if that was even possible, but she wouldn’t have put it past him.
“Oh my,” she murmured to herself as she manhandled the little spark into the pit at the very center of the house which stood against time.
