Roy looked over at Percival now. He held the candle near his chest, firelight fluttering over the angular planes of his face. The only suggestion of his bitterness lay hushed in the air like an unwelcome visitor.
You don’t... You don’t have tokeep toyourself.
Gone was his vulnerable sadness; Percival wore an expression of fearful resolve, severe lines marking the skin beneath his lips and around his narrowed eyes. While Roy knew it was a mask, his hands were still clammy with sweat. He tried to keep his attention on the firelight flickering across the walls, but Roy was no soldier. He could not win this battle.
“I hear them,” Percival murmured. “Not voices, but those... vibrations.”
Roy heard them, too. They were quiet but rhythmic, like the fluttering of butterfly wings.
He wanted to keep silent and show Percival he was capable of not giving him the satisfaction of a response. Percival had done the same. When the descent into the catacombs had been too much for him to bear, owing, perhaps, to the tragedy he’d hinted at, he had gone silent. Roy knew he could do it himself. Why not? He didn’t have the willpower to coerce Percival into a false sense of security or form replies full of gilded trickery. Maybe silence was the better option. But the tension that had risen between them was receding, and the whispers were getting louder, so Roy eventually broke the quiet.
“What is this place?” he whispered.
While the candle provided a warm glow, breezes of cool, crisp air kissed his cheeks. A second scent lurked beneath that of rot and decay but he couldn’t determine the odor; the first was too potent, clogging his nostrils. It sneaked inside him, then came back out, up the back of his throat. He gagged, swallowing the vomit pressing against the inside of his mouth.
Those whispers, the voices Percival had mentioned, sounded more than anguished; they soundedtrapped. Muffled pleas scuttled through the eerie silence, just beyond his reach, like sobs stifled by a damp rag. He remembered those agonized screams when the ghost had chased him and tried to draw a comparison, though these voices were much quieter, softer, but just as terrified.
Before Roy had been taken to the Orphic Basilica, he’d walked down a hallway in Dawnseve Manor and seen Northgard from afar. Only then had he realized how tiny the city was and, with this in mind, how much misery could be compressed into a single pocket of civilization. Distraught, he’d listened to the desperate appeals of frostbitten families, begging for food and mercy, their screams carrying on the shrieking winter wind. He had tried several times to give the Matron a written petition to deliver to the Iron Citadel, requesting bread and jam and other amenities, but she had burned Roy’s letter seconds after reading it.
The familiarity of the citizens’ screams struck a chord in Roy’s chest now. Phantoms hissed within his head, and though he wished to help them, Roy was powerless to do so. The innocents, those in his mind and outside these walls, had no savior.
“What is this place, Percival?” he asked again.
“No place for the present. You can feel the age in this tunnel, yes? It feels so... soold, like the stones might crumble at any moment.”
Roy stopped and looked at the walls. Percival circled back and followed his lead.
There was truth in what Percival had said. The age of a building reflected the shadow of its past. Architecture had an uncanny way of depicting history so that later generations could understand their ancestors, ruminate on their triumphs and misdeeds. Yet this tunnel was more akin to a warning, a place best left undisturbed. Indeed, Percival was right. Thiswasno place for the present; whatever cataclysm had caused such dread here did not belong in this age—or, possibly, this world.
Roy exhaled, his breathing ragged. He needed to be here; of that, he had no doubt. He had to save the damned people of Northgard before they became the dead.
He pressed his hand against a flagstone, and a chill rushed through his palm. A thick substance coated the stone, sticky as sap. He pushed his fingertips deeper into the liquid, then slowly pulled his hand away.
Roy frowned, confused. Perhaps his vision was failing him— he had been subject to odder occurrences in this library—but he couldn’t seem to locate the substance. He rubbed his fingertips together, cringing at the unusual sensation, and, sure enough, he felt its resinous consistency. But the wall was clear as the slabs of stone beneath his feet.
Despite his deepening disgust, Roy was unable to suppress his curiosity. He raised his fingertips to his nose. A sudden wave of disorientation came over him... and then a rush of familiarity. Certainty rose and hardened in his chest. He had felt this before; heknewit. The smell of the substance overpowered the reek of dead and rotting things.
This must be that smell, he thought.The smell that put those visions of rot and death in my head.
The discovery was far from an indication of what purpose this tunnel had, but all the same, he inhaled again. Something lingered beneath the mildew. Charcoal? No, burnt meat. Or burntflesh,for all he knew.
“What are you doing?” Percival asked. He was looking at Roy’s hand, a questioning look on his face.
It could’ve been the inquisitiveness in Percival’s voice, but Roy didn’t hesitate as he held out his hand and said, “Smell this. There seems to be some substance on the walls.”
The candlelight illuminated Roy’s fingertips. Although he couldn’t see anything, aiding his theory that the substance was a figment of his imagination, warped by hallucinations, he also couldn’t doubt its existence.
Percival shuffled a step closer and bowed forward. There was a scent drifting about his hair, a crisp and woodsy aroma. He lifted his head and nodded. An expression of resignation settled upon his features, as if he’d finally given in to the prospect of Roy finding something worthwhile.
Roy surveyed the area for a surface to relocate the residue. He looked down at his trousers, but the fine, soft cloth seemed too expensive to be marred by a stain, albeit an invisible one.
“You have quite the attitude about maintaining an image,” Percival said, his voice tinged with careful curiosity.
His cheeks hot with mortification, Roy cleared his throat, resuming his search for a place to remove the substance. “I don’t do well with unfamiliar textures and sensations. Sometimes,mosttimes, it gets under my skin, and even when I can’t see it, it still feels like it’s there.” It was a severe understatement of the feeling—he had sometimes scratched his arms for hours because the elbow pads of his coat felt like they were burning through his skin—but he was anxious that Percival would deride Roy or use his experiences as blackmail.
But Percival was fortunately quite understanding. “Ah,” he said. “Yes, I’ve noticed you scratch your hand on occasion. Here.” He proffered a corner of his tunic. “It’s not as though it hasn’t been scuffed and torn already.”
“You wouldn’t mind? I know it seems a little unnecessary, but...”
