By the fourth day, Arthur had begun to feel the rhythm of Broken Stone—or more accurately, the rhythm of its neglect.
The garrison had sharpened slightly under his presence. Training drills began at dawn, rotations were assigned, and scouts had started returning from quiet night rides with conflicting reports: broken treelines, hoofprints with no banners, strange noises in the foothills. No fresh bodies.
But no sign of a second beast either.
The men were alert now, though. Not out of fear, but out of discipline—newly remembered and reluctantly embraced.
Arthur took the road alone that morning, his cloak pulled tight against the cold. The village sat lower than the garrison, nestled against the slope like it had grown inward over time, curling around itself to stay warm. Smoke drifted from crooked chimneys. Windows were shuttered even during daylight.
No one approached him as he passed.
He didn't expect them to.
The main square was a wide half-circle paved in uneven slate. A few carts stood at odd angles beside the well. Three older men played dice in silence near the tannery, while two children peered at Arthur from the shadows between stalls.
He stepped into the apothecary first. The woman inside didn't look up from her bundles of dried root.
"You're not a villager," she said after a moment, tying off a bundle. "You wear too much steel to be poor and not enough to be rich."
Arthur didn't argue. "I came from the garrison. The knights have been recalled to full training."
"They won't stay," she replied flatly. "They never do."
Arthur approached the counter, resting his gauntlet lightly on the stone.
"Something happened here, months ago. A shrine collapsed. The road guard was reduced. Now riders come in the night. Why hasn't anyone asked why?"
She glanced up for the first time. Her eyes were pale, but clear. Not afraid.
"People here don't ask questions," she said. "They just hope the right ones do."
Arthur nodded once, then placed a silver seal on the counter. "Send word if you hear more. Not just of riders. Of those who left and didn't return."
The woman took the coin. "You'll get silence from some. They've learned it's safer."
"I've learned silence rots faster than fear."
He left the shop with more than he came for.
At midday, Arga approached as Arthur stood reviewing the old shrine's rubble near the ridge.
"One of the scouts found an old trail," the captain said. "Southwest. It leads into the brambles behind the collapsed shrine wall."
Arthur looked up. "Rider tracks?"
"Maybe. The ground's been swept deliberately. They didn't want it seen."
"Show me."
The path was overgrown but clear once you stepped into the brush. The trees thinned quickly, revealing a slope that had once held a shrine outbuilding—a structure Arthur hadn't seen from the front.
It was mostly collapsed, stone bones jutting from the earth, but part of it remained intact. The door was sealed, half-buried behind thorn and frost.
Arthur stood before it.
The Codex stirred in his chest again. Not violently. Not urgently. But with a faint echo of recognition.
Arga stepped forward. "We can break the seal."
"No," Arthur said. "Not yet. I want to know what it was before we treat it like a ruin."
He brushed his gauntlet against the stone. It was older than the rest of the shrine. Different craftsmanship. The carving along its lintel wasn't Imperial. Not recent at all.
Something else had once held ground here—long before Broken Stone bore its name.
That evening, Arthur requested the old ledgers be brought up from the garrison's records. They arrived in a dusty crate, untouched for years.
He worked through the night.
Arga brought tea. The young knight posted at the door tried not to yawn too loudly.
Most of the entries were supply tallies and food requisitions. But further in, Arthur found a name that appeared too often and then vanished: **Sir Ellian Fenn**, a knight assigned two years ago. Recorded as "discharged for injury."
But no healers had signed off. No replacement had ever been sent.
The last notation next to his name: *"Transcribed entry—Voluntary watch, southern shrine segment."*
And then nothing.
That night, the wind didn't howl—it whispered.
Arthur lay in the war room, eyes closed but mind alert, Codex pulsing faintly at the edge of sleep. Somewhere beyond the ridge, something moved.
Not a beast this time. Not entirely.
A will.
Watching.
Waiting.
And not alone.