The castle slept.
Or at least it pretended to.
Torchlight flickered down the long stone corridors. Somewhere above, boots clattered, guards murmured, chains rattled in unseen places.
But down here, in the drowned belly of the keep, silence ruled.
Tammer Vex moved like a man chasing ghosts, slipping through shadow and stink, humming under his breath.
Caelan followed, heart pounding so loudly he was certain the whole damn castle could hear it.
His fingers tightened around the makeshift blade Tammer had given him.
It was laughably small.
Against real steel, it was little better than a broken fang.
But it was hope.
And hope had teeth when you were desperate enough.
They had slipped free during the last guard change. Tammer had known the pattern, the rhythms of the guards — he had been here before, perhaps many times.
They ducked into a service tunnel, an ancient stone throat slick with moss and slime.
Tammer tugged a broken torch bracket, and with a low groan, a section of wall shifted, revealing a black maw beyond.
"A gift," Tammer whispered, eyes gleaming. "From the old days. When men built their tombs bigger than their houses."
Caelan hesitated at the threshold.
The air that breathed out from the hole was cold, wet, and wrong — like standing too close to a corpse that hadn't yet finished dying.
Tammer flashed his broken grin.
"Second rule of freedom, little fish," he said. "You go where no living thing wants to go."
Without waiting for an answer, Tammer slipped inside.
Caelan clenched his jaw and followed.
The darkness swallowed them whole.
The tunnel narrowed, forcing them to crouch, then crawl.
Cold mud sucked at Caelan's boots.
The walls wept.
Something skittered in the blackness — rats, or worse.
The stink was unbearable, a rot that seemed to soak into his skin, his bones.
Tammer moved like he belonged here, whispering nonsense rhymes under his breath.
Caelan focused on the sound of his voice, forcing one foot forward after the other.
For a while, there was only darkness and the sound of breathing.
Then Tammer hissed, stopping suddenly.
Ahead, a faint glimmer of light shone through broken stone — and the faint sound of voices drifted down.
Guards.
Patrolling.
Too close.
Tammer turned, face inches from Caelan's in the dark.
"Time for the third rule," he whispered.
Caelan nodded numbly.
"What's the third rule?"
Tammer grinned wide enough to show cracked teeth.
"Don't get caught again."
Without warning, he slithered into a side passage barely big enough for a child.
Caelan hesitated only a moment before forcing himself after him, scraping his back raw against the stones.
Behind them, the muffled voices of the guards grew louder — boots sloshing through the filth.
Caelan bit back a curse.
If they were seen now, it would be no dungeon next time — just a shallow grave.
The side tunnel twisted and narrowed until it became impossible to crawl.
Ahead, Tammer jammed a rusted iron bar into a stone seam.
With a groan, the floor gave way — a drop, maybe ten feet down, into deeper blackness.
Tammer dropped without hesitation, vanishing like a stone into a pond.
Caelan swore under his breath.
He looked back — torchlight flickered at the end of the tunnel. Shouts.
No choice.
He tightened his grip on the little blade and dropped.
The fall rattled his bones.
He hit something wet and soft — not mud. Not water.
A pile of bones.
Ancient. Brittle.
The stink here was worse than death — it was despair made flesh.
Tammer loomed out of the dark, grinning madly.
"Welcome," he whispered. "To the forgotten ones."
Far above, the guards' shouts grew fainter, swallowed by stone and filth.
For now, they had escaped.
But Caelan realized with a sinking heart that they were not safe.
Not yet.
Because whatever lay ahead, deeper in these blackened veins beneath the kingdom...
It made the dungeon look merciful.
The tunnels breathed.
A low, wet sound, like the world itself was dying slowly in the dark.
Caelan and Tammer moved carefully, sloshing through ankle-deep water, their bodies stiff with cold and terror.
The air grew heavier with each step — thick with the stink of mold and something fouler still.
The walls narrowed, curling into a tighter throat.
The only light was the faint phosphorescence of sickly fungi clinging to the stones.
Caelan shivered.
Then he heard it —
—a dragging, slithering noise behind them.
Not a rat.
Not a man.
Something else.
Tammer froze.
A rare seriousness clouded his filthy face.
He turned to Caelan, his voice a paper-thin whisper:
"Don't move. Don't breathe loud. Don't look it in the eyes."
Caelan opened his mouth to ask what, but Tammer silenced him with a sharp glance.
From the shadows ahead, it emerged.
It wasn't large — no bigger than a man — but its body was wrong.
A skeletal frame wrapped in sagging, colorless flesh.
Its limbs bent the wrong way, joints swollen and trembling.
A mouthless head twitched atop a crooked neck, and hollow sockets — no eyes, only black pits — sought blindly for sound.
The thing sniffed the air, its chest spasming.
It dragged itself forward, nails scraping bloody trails across the stone.
Caelan fought the urge to gag.
Tammer dropped low, spreading his arms in an odd gesture — not in fear, but... reverence?
The creature moved past them, twitching, slavering.
It bumped into the wall, then stumbled away down a side passage, vanishing into the dark like a nightmare that hadn't yet decided who it would belong to.
Caelan slumped back against the wall, gasping soundlessly.
Tammer grinned and wiped his forehead.
"Old courtier," he whispered. "Used to be a man, once. A lord who wanted more life than the gods gave him. Some bargains don't age well."
He laughed softly, a cracked, sad sound.
Caelan stared at him, stunned.
"You—" he croaked, voice rough. "You knew it wouldn't hurt us?"
Tammer nodded.
"If you're already dead inside, it don't see you," he said simply. "Smells only hope. Dreams. Futures."
He patted Caelan's shoulder gently.
"You're broken enough to pass, lad. For now."
They moved faster after that, driven by terror and the growing promise of fresh air.
At last, a broken grate led them out into the night — into a forgotten alleyway choked with refuse and fog.
Freedom.
Caelan collapsed onto the wet cobblestones, dragging in lungfuls of filthy, beautiful air.
Tammer simply stood, staring up at the moonless sky.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Tammer chuckled, a low, musical sound.
"You know," he said casually, "I wasn't always a rat in the walls."
Caelan glanced at him skeptically.
Tammer smiled wider.
"I wore velvet once. Gold rings. Sat at tables where kings begged for favors."
Caelan snorted.
"Right," he said. "And I'm the Queen's long-lost son."
Tammer laughed harder.
"Believe what you like, little fish," he said, reaching into his ragged tunic.
He pulled out a crude necklace — a cord strung with tiny rat bones, bleached white.
With surprising tenderness, he pressed it into Caelan's palm.
"A gift," Tammer said. "For luck. You'll need it, where you're going."
Caelan stared down at the grim token, unsure whether to laugh, cry, or throw it into the gutter.
When he looked up, Tammer was already walking away, whistling a broken tune.
Caelan sat there a moment longer, clutching the ratbone necklace, feeling the weight of things he didn't understand.
Above him, the stars hid behind the clouds.
The world of men — bloody, cruel, and hungering — waited to swallow him again.
And somewhere deep beneath the streets, in tunnels older than memory, the forgotten ones still stirred.
The slums hadn't changed.
The air still stank of rot and smoke.
The crooked alleys still twisted like veins through the broken heart of Valmere.
And yet, to Caelan, everything felt different — smaller, sharper, more fragile.
He moved carefully, keeping to the shadows. Every drunken shout or stray glance from a beggar set his nerves on edge.
The city was no longer just indifferent — it was hunting him now.
When he finally slipped into the dim backroom of Brann's shack, he found the older man hunched over a cracked table, oil lamp burning low.
Brann's head snapped up.
For a moment, disbelief flashed across his face — then a low, rough laugh.
"By the black gods," Brann muttered, getting to his feet. "You're a stubborn bastard."
He pulled Caelan into a fierce, brief embrace, clapping him on the back so hard it nearly knocked the breath from him.
"I thought you were rotting in a ditch somewhere," Brann said, stepping back to study him with narrowed eyes. "Or worse."
Caelan managed a weak smile.
"Had help," he said simply.
Brann grunted, grabbing a worn satchel from under the table and tossing it onto the surface with a thud.
"Don't tell me the details," he said. "Safer that way."
He began throwing things into the bag — salted meat, a cracked waterskin, a few battered coins, a knife that had seen better days.
Caelan frowned.
"You're packing," he said.
Brann nodded grimly.
"You think escaping prison goes unnoticed, boy?" he said. "You think guards just shrug and move on?"
He snorted.
"They'll tear this slum apart looking for you. And anyone who's seen you. If we stay, we die."
He moved fast, efficient — the movements of a man who had left places in a hurry before.
Caelan swallowed hard.
"Where are we going?"
Brann slung the satchel over one shoulder and grabbed a second one, tossing it to Caelan.
"North," he said. "Into the hills. I've got kin up there. Blood thicker than water and all that."
He paused, grimacing.
"Mind you," he added, "they might just slam the door in my face."
Caelan arched an eyebrow.
"Sounds promising."
Brann chuckled darkly.
"Better the devil you know," he said. "Besides — mountain folk don't ask too many questions. Not if you show up with enough whiskey or good steel."
He jerked his head toward the door.
"Move. Every minute we linger, the noose tightens."
They slipped into the night.
Past crumbling walls and gutters running black with rainwater.
Past broken shrines and doorways where hollow-eyed children watched from the dark.
The city groaned and shifted around them, a living thing wounded and wild.
As they left the last twisted streets behind, Caelan glanced back once.
The slums of Valmere crouched against the night, shivering like a beaten dog.
He turned away, tightening his grip on the ratbone necklace hidden under his shirt.
Ahead, the road to the mountains waited — narrow, treacherous, and cold.
Brann trudged forward without looking back, muttering curses under his breath.
Caelan followed, the weight of the past and future pressing heavy on his shoulders.
He didn't know what waited in the mountains.
He only knew that going back wasn't an option.
Not anymore.
The mountains rose like broken teeth against the horizon.
Jagged and cold, wrapped in mist and cloud, they seemed almost alive — as if watching the two figures trudging along the muddy road far below.
Caelan pulled his thin cloak tighter against the biting wind.
His breath misted before him, every step heavier than the last.
They had been walking for two days.
Food was running low.
Brann's salted meat had turned out to be more salt than meat, and their water skins were stained with the taste of old leather.
The road twisted through barren hills and skeletal forests.
Every shadow seemed to lean closer.
Every branch reached like bony fingers.
Caelan's legs ached. His hands were numb.
But he said nothing.
Brann set a pace that brooked no complaints — grim and tireless, like a hound chasing a scent only he could smell.
By the third day, the world changed.
The trees thinned, and abandoned farmsteads dotted the hillsides — hollow houses with sagging roofs and doors hanging open like yawning mouths.
No smoke rose from chimneys.
No dogs barked in the distance.
Only the crows remained, picking at things unseen in the tall, dead grasses.
At one crossroads, they found a crude warning nailed to a post.
A bundle of twigs, tied together with bloody rags, hung beneath a crude carving of a twisted figure — neither man nor beast.
Brann grunted, giving it a wide berth without stopping.
"What is it?" Caelan asked, voice low.
"Bad news," Brann said simply. "Folk up here believe in old things. Things that don't care much for kings or priests."
He spat to the side.
"Best keep walking."
That night, they camped in the ruins of a collapsed barn.
The fire was small and mean, barely enough to warm their hands.
Brann cleaned a dagger with a rag, eyes flickering to the darkness beyond the crumbling walls.
"Don't wander tonight," he said. "Whatever's out there... it don't like strangers."
Caelan didn't need the warning.
Something was out there — he could feel it.
As he drifted into a shallow, miserable sleep, he dreamed of pale figures moving through the trees, whispering in voices that sounded almost human.
The next day, the road narrowed into a broken trail that climbed sharply toward the mountains.
The air grew colder, thinner.
The clouds pressed low, threatening snow.
Brann moved slower now, his limp more pronounced.
Caelan kept pace, though every muscle screamed for rest.
As dusk approached, they saw a shape ahead —
— a bridge of old stones spanning a narrow gorge.
Half of it had collapsed into the rushing river below.
They would have to find another way across.
Brann cursed under his breath, scanning the cliffs.
"There's a path," he muttered. "Dangerous, but doable."
Caelan didn't like the look in his eyes.
But he nodded.
There was no choice.
Not unless they wanted to camp on the road — exposed, vulnerable.
And after the things he had glimpsed in the woods last night, Caelan knew better than to tempt fate.
They clambered down a hidden goat trail slick with frost.
Loose rocks skittered beneath their boots.
The river roared below, black and angry.
Halfway down, a howl echoed from the trees.
Not a wolf.
Something else.
Brann froze, face pale.
"Move," he said. "Fast."
They scrambled the rest of the way in desperate silence.
As Caelan reached the bottom, he looked back once.
On the ridge above, silhouetted against the dying light, a figure watched them.
Tall.
Wrong.
Its head tilted unnaturally, too far to the side — like a puppet whose strings had been twisted.
Caelan's stomach turned to ice.
When he blinked, it was gone.
They pushed on into the gathering dark.
Ahead, hidden in the folds of the hills, Brann's kin — whoever they were — waited.
Whether they would find shelter... or more danger... remained to be seen.
But one thing was certain.
The mountains were not empty.
And the old things were watching.