Page 20 of Haunted Crowns
Kareon muttered, “Relax, princess. They only look like they’ll eat you.”
She arched her brow. “I would say the same about you.”
A slow grin. “Now you’re learning.”
Kareon dismounted first, nodding toward a large tent flanked by hanging charms and weathered totems.
"Wait there. And don’t touch anything."
Eris exhaled sharply and stepped inside.
The world shifted.
Low-burning torches flickered over rich furs, carved talismans, and bowls of smoldering herbs. The air smelled of earth, fire, and something older. Power.
Eris’s fingers brushed the wooden table at the center, its surface covered in swirling carvings that seemed to hum beneath her skin. She inhaled sharply. She didn’t know what she had stepped into, only that she belonged to it. Her hand found a bone-carved pendant: a wolf, fangs bared, hollow eyes staring back.
“Touching things already?”
She turned. Kareon stood at the entrance, and beside him moved Kaelioth, vast in presence despite his quiet steps. Silver-threaded braids framed a face shaped by war and survival. The furs on his shoulders bore sacred symbols, each sigil a whisperof old battles. But it was his eyes that unsettled her. They were deep, knowing. Ancient. They didn’t merely see her; they searched the past, the present, and something yet to come.
Kaelioth stepped forward, and the air seemed to press down heavier. He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something only he could hear. His gaze roamed her face, not just studying, but measuring. Then he smiled as recognition flickered across his face.
“Ah.” She stiffened. “That look…” he continued in a thick, foreign accent. “Fierce and soft all at once. I would know it anywhere.”
Something deep in her bones responded, though her mind could not explain why. She glanced at Kareon. Their eyes met. His jaw was tight, chest rising and falling with the restraint of someone feeling a shift he couldn’t yet name.
“What…?” she began, but the words fell silent.
Kaelioth gestured toward the cushions near the fire.
“Sit, both of you.” His voice carried weight and finality.
The fire didn’t warm her. It watched. She lowered herself onto the cushion, spine straight, hands clenched in her lap. Across from her, Kaelioth settled with the calm of someone who had seen this moment before. His gaze met hers.
“You hear them. Do you not?”
The words struck like iron in her chest. A gust passed through the tent. No chill, no scent of forest. It came from somewhere else. Something was watching.
Her fingers twitched. She had heard them before—wind murmurs, pressure curling beneath her ribs, whispering in a voice she had never understood. She nodded.
Kaelioth reached toward the wooden bowl between them. The water inside trembled. Her breath shallowed. The surface shivered, stirred by nothing she could see. Shapes moved beneath it, waiting. She recoiled.
“What is this?”
Kaelioth’s unreadable eyes glinted in the firelight, calm.
“A message.”
Her pulse pounded. “From whom?”
“From those who never left.”
A chill slid down her spine. “Who are they?” she whispered.
Kaelioth inhaled slowly, as if drawing the answer from the very air.
“Your great-grandmother heard them too.”
