The silence pressed against his ears with physical weight, a wrongness that sent prickles of alarm racing across his skin despite his bone-deep weariness.After two days of hard travel since his confrontation with the Northern patrol, he had expected to find a bustling trading hub—not this hollow shell, this ghost of habitation that stood before him now.
He paused, one hand braced against a pine trunk, forcing his breathing to steady.The cold air burned his lungs, each exhale blooming before him in pale clouds that dissipated too quickly.Something was wrong.Terribly wrong.
"Hello?"he called, his voice sounding thin and pitiful against the vast emptiness.
Only silence answered, a silence so profound it seemed to swallow his words whole.Roran's hand drifted instinctively toward his belt knife, though what good steel would do against whatever had emptied an entire town, he couldn't say.The more practical part of him—the part trained at Frostforge—assessed his resources with clinical detachment.Two days' rations remained in his pack.His waterskin hung half-full at his hip.The cold had penetrated his bones despite his layers of wool and fur, and fatigue dragged at his limbs like chains.
"Focus," he whispered to himself, straightening his shoulders.
His boots crunched through fresh snow as he descended into the town proper, following what appeared to be the main thoroughfare.The streets of Elkhollow stretched before him, eerily pristine save for countless footprints stamped into the snow—all headed away from the town center, all bearing the unmistakable pattern of haste.
Roran studied them with growing unease.Some were clearly the prints of running children, small and chaotic.Others showed the deeper impression of adults laden with burdens.All moved in the same direction—north, away from the river.
Away from water.
A cart lay overturned near what must have been the town's central square, its contents—winter vegetables, mostly—scattered across the snow.Beyond it, a wooden poppet lay abandoned, its painted face smiling vacantly at the sky.Nearby, a woman's woolen shawl had been trampled into the slush.Roran knelt, touching the rough fabric with gloved fingers.Not frozen stiff yet—discarded recently, then.
He rose, turning in a slow circle.Doors gaped open all along the street, as if their inhabitants had fled without a backward glance.No signs of violence marked the buildings themselves—no scorch marks, no broken windows, no bloodstains to suggest an attack.Just...absence.As if the entire population had simultaneously decided to leave without bothering to shut their doors behind them.
Roran chose one dwelling at random—a modest timber structure with shutters painted a cheery blue.The door hung ajar, swinging slightly in the faint breeze.He approached cautiously, one hand hovering near his knife hilt, the other ready to call storm if needed.
"Hello?"he called again, pushing the door wider with his boot toe."Is anyone here?"
Silence greeted him, broken only by the soft creak of the door's hinges.
Inside, the scene was eerier still.A wooden table held three bowls of congealed porridge, spoons resting beside them as if their owners had been called away mid-meal.A child's wooden toy horse lay on its side near the hearth, where embers still glowed faintly orange beneath a coating of gray ash.
Roran crouched, holding his palm over the coals.Warmth radiated against his skin—faint but present.
"Hours," he murmured to himself."Not days."
He straightened, scanning the interior more carefully.A stew pot hung over the hearth, its contents reduced to a thick sludge at the bottom.A chair was overturned, as if someone had stood in haste.On the table, beside the abandoned breakfast, a half-carved piece of wood bore the beginnings of what might have been a toy boat.
The home's former occupants hadn't planned to leave.They had been in the midst of their daily lives when something had driven them out—something that left no time for packing, for preparation, for doing anything beyond running.
The realization sent a chill through Roran that had nothing to do with the winter air seeping through the open door.
Whatever had emptied Elkhollow had done so suddenly, completely, and very, very recently.
He left the house, moving deeper into the town with renewed purpose.If the evacuation had been so recent, perhaps he could catch up to the townspeople, learn what had driven them away.Information was his mission, after all—understanding the situation in the North, determining the advance of the threat.
A familiar suspicion gnawed at his gut.Could it be the Deep Ones?Had the shadows from the sea reached this far inland already?Thalia had warned that the threat moved faster than anyone at Frostforge understood.If she was right…
A harsh metallic sound sliced through his thoughts, sharp and startling against the town's unnatural quiet.Roran froze, his breath catching in his throat.The sound repeated—a rhythmic clanging like metal striking stone, coming from somewhere to his right.
Electricity crackled between his fingers before he could think, storm magic responding to his alarm with instinctive readiness.Blue-white sparks danced across his knuckles as he turned toward the sound, every sense heightened.After days of repressing his power, the magic surged eagerly in his veins, as if relieved to be acknowledged at last.
"Control," he whispered to himself, forcing the lightning to recede to a more manageable hum beneath his skin.Drawing attention with storm magic had nearly cost him his life once already on this mission.He wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
The clanging continued, steady and persistent.Roran moved toward it, slipping between buildings with the caution Frostforge had drilled into him through five brutal years of training.He kept to the shadows, placing each footstep with deliberate care to minimize sound.The noise grew louder as he approached what appeared to be a stable or carriage house set behind a larger building.
Peering around the corner, Roran felt tension drain from his shoulders, replaced by a wave of foolish relief.
A horse—just a horse.A sturdy bay gelding with a white blaze, tied to a hitching post and apparently forgotten in the town's sudden evacuation.The animal pawed at the ground with one metal-shod hoof, producing the rhythmic clanging that had drawn Roran to this spot.Its ears flicked forward at the sight of him, nostrils flaring.
"Easy," Roran murmured, stepping into view with his palm extended."Easy there, friend."
The horse snorted, tossing its head.It looked healthy enough—no sign of injury or illness—though its coat was dark with sweat despite the cold, suggesting it had been ridden hard not long ago.A saddle rested on a nearby rail, alongside bridles and other tack.
