Ch. 176 What the Walls Remembered

Chapter 176: What the Walls Remembered

Aurelia kept her promise.

There was no lesson the morning after the birthday.

Garrick woke before dawn anyway.

He stood in his cradle, holding the rail, and announced his dissatisfaction with the darkness.

Evelyn opened one eye.

“Your son.”

“He was your son yesterday when everyone said how handsome he was.”

“He still is. You may admire him while carrying him.”

I got up.

Our son greeted me with enormous pleasure.

Apparently one year of life had taught him that shouting eventually produced transport.

We ate breakfast late.

There was leftover cake.

Beatrice had placed it at the far end of the table, where the children could see it but could not reach.

I thought this unnecessarily provocative.

Carol agreed.

Aurelia arrived with her hair loosely tied and no sign that she regretted allowing us to rest.

She accepted tea.

Then a small piece of cake.

“You look pleased with yourself,” I said.

“I slept.”

“A worthwhile ambition.”

“You should try it.”

Evelyn laughed.

I gave Garrick another piece of bread.

The Castellan found us afterward.

“I have completed the first comparison of the wards.”

Aurelia set down her cup.

“And?”

“There is something you should see.”

I looked toward the nursery basket.

Carol had put one of Eleanor’s blocks inside my boot.

I removed it.

Then found another.

Evelyn watched me.

“Go. I’ll join you when they’re settled.”

The Castellan led us beneath the eastern wall.

I had walked the passage before without paying much attention to it.

Store cupboards.

A locked door.

A place where the stone changed colour beside the stair.

Now he stopped at that pale seam.

“This section was rebuilt after the old damage.”

Aurelia touched the wall.

I watched her fingers move across the mortar.

“Who rebuilt it?”

“I do not retain that record.”

He pressed two fingers against a narrow bronze plate.

Something clicked within the stone.

A panel shifted outward.

Behind it lay a shallow chamber lined with metal.

There was no grand crystal.

No shining crown.

Only strips of worked bronze, fitted into channels with the patience of someone who expected them to remain there for a very long time.

Several were dark.

Others held a faint, steady light.

I could feel my own power in them.

Evelyn’s too.

The small contribution we made to the castle had become so familiar that I usually noticed it only when something changed.

Here, the two currents passed through the same narrow place.

Then divided.

Aurelia leaned closer.

“This was made to admit someone.”

“Who?”

She looked at the marks along the upper edge.

“The First Witness.”

I thought of the Hall of Accord.

The empty office.

The old authority people had continued to invoke long after there was nobody left to exercise it.

“Can someone still use it?”

“Possibly,” the Castellan said.

That was not an answer I enjoyed.

Aurelia traced the line without touching its power.

“It recognizes an office seal.”

“Not a person?”

“No.”

I stared into the chamber.

We had been examining the walls for something strong enough to break through them.

Here was a place built to open.

Evelyn arrived with Mary.

My wife listened while Aurelia explained.

Then she asked, “Has it been used?”

“I have found no recent passage,” the Castellan replied.

“How recent?”

“Within the records I retain.”

Mary wrote that down exactly.

I appreciated her for it.

Aurelia straightened.

“This does not bear Othellos’s mark.”

“But someone carrying the proper authority might pass?”

“Yes.”

My wife looked at the two currents of light.

“Then we should change what it accepts.”

My first thought was to tear out the bronze.

It was an attractive thought.

Simple.

Decisive.

The Castellan watched me look at the fittings.

“This chamber also governs the passage of our own supply through the eastern wards.”

I lowered my hand.

“Of course it does.”

Mary glanced up.

“Would breaking it be difficult to repair?”

“Extremely.”

Aurelia’s mouth moved slightly.

I looked at her.

“You knew what I was thinking.”

“You leaned forward.”

Apparently I had become easy to read.

We took a copy of the inscription before touching anything.

Then the Castellan showed us the surrounding lines.

The opening for the First Witness had been worked into an older arrangement.

It shared three connections with the part that sustained the wall.

Evelyn knelt beside the chamber.

“Here.”

She pointed to a place where two strips overlapped.

Aurelia nodded.

“And beneath it.”

My wife followed the second line.

“I can separate those.”

“For how long?” I asked.

“Long enough if you hold the supply steady.”

I looked at the faint light.

That sounded very much like a lesson.

Aurelia waited until we had both found the working.

Then she asked me to draw back part of my contribution.

Only part.

The wall gave a low sound.

I felt it through the soles of my boots.

Immediately, I pushed more power toward the gap.

“Stay with the amount you chose,” Aurelia said.

“It moved.”

“Yes.”

“The wall—”

“Uriah. Feel where it moved.”

I stopped trying to correct everything at once.

The disturbance was small.

A change in pressure along one branch.

I held it.

Beside me, Evelyn breathed out.

“There. Now I can see it.”

She lifted the borrowed authority away from the other lines.

Not the bronze.

The working carried within it.

For an instant, I felt the shape of something waiting to be recognized.

A claim that arrival should be enough.

Then Evelyn turned it aside.

The light changed.

The passage became very quiet.

Aurelia placed two fingers against the outer edge and held it while the Castellan removed a small connecting pin.

“Done,” he said.

I began returning my power.

Too quickly.

Warmth rushed beneath my ribs.

My vision blurred.

I caught the edge of the opening.

Evelyn’s hand closed around my arm.

“Slowly.”

I could hear her.

The difficulty was persuading the power to listen as well.

It had been easy to send strength outward when I imagined somewhere for it to go.

Taking it back felt like trying to carry a full basin through a narrow doorway.

I wanted to empty it.

To cast the excess away.

Then I remembered the stone in the training room.

I let the returning current spread.

The pressure eased.

The passage came back into focus.

Aurelia stood close, watching.

“Yes,” she said. “Like that.”

We sat on the stair afterward.

Mary had gone to fetch water.

The Castellan remained beside the open panel with Evelyn, examining the altered lines.

“Was that dangerous?” I asked.

“It could have been if you had continued pulling,” Aurelia said.

“I thought I was finished.”

“You were finished holding the wall. You had not finished handling the strength you used.”

I rubbed my palms over my knees.

“How much of your power can you bring back?”

“Not all. Some is spent doing the work.”

“So what returned—”

“Was what you were still holding there.”

I looked toward the chamber.

I had wasted a great deal without ever knowing it.

Aurelia followed my gaze.

“Do not spend the afternoon regretting every shield you have ever made.”

“I was only considering a few.”

“You learned to use what you needed.”

“And now?”

“Now you are learning what else happens.”

Evelyn came to sit beside me.

“There’s another connection in the southern wall,” she said. “The Castellan wants to compare it before we change anything.”

I nodded.

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

I glanced at Aurelia.

She looked almost innocent.

“This was not a lesson,” she said.

My wife laughed.

That afternoon, I helped Eleanor move timber in the lower yard.

A small load.

Nothing the workers could not have managed with ropes.

I asked because I wanted to understand the difference while I was still close enough to the morning’s mistake to remember it clearly.

Eleanor listened to my explanation.

Then pointed.

“From there to there. No higher than my shoulder.”

I lifted the timber.

Held it while two men adjusted the supports.

Lowered it.

Then waited.

There was strength remaining in the working.

Less than I expected.

I drew it back gradually.

My hands stayed steady.

Eleanor checked the timber.

Then looked at me.

“Well?”

“I think that went better.”

“The wood agrees.”

Perrin approached with a small model under one arm.

He had changed the construction frame’s feet again.

The new shape had a broader edge and a joint that allowed it to settle on uneven ground.

He showed Eleanor.

She asked three questions.

He answered two.

For the third, he went to find the Castellan.

I watched him leave.

“What?” Eleanor asked.

“Nothing.”

“You’re smiling.”

“He’s stopped trying to answer before he knows.”

She looked toward the workshop.

“Sometimes.”

Aurelia spoke to us after supper about what had happened in the passage.

This time, she brought no stones.

We sat near the hearth with the nursery door open beyond the adjoining room.

“When I first changed,” she said, “I thought wanting to help was enough to tell me how much of myself I could give.”

Evelyn rested her cup on the table.

“You reached too far.”

“Often.”

“What happened?”

“I would answer one person, then another. After a while, I could feel the shape of every need more clearly than I could feel myself.”

I thought of the pull within the wall.

It had occupied only a moment.

“What brought you back?”

“At first? Exhaustion.”

She looked into the fire.

“Later, I learned to return deliberately. To recognize what was mine even after I had carried it somewhere else.”

“Is that what you’re teaching me?”

“Part of it.”

“And the rest?”

“How to remain present while you do it. How to hear someone without becoming every fear they bring to you. How to stop a working before the wish to finish it becomes the only thing you can think about.”

Evelyn leaned back.

“That belongs in healing lessons too.”

“It does.”

My wife looked at her hands.

Then nodded to herself.

“Will I have to leave?” I asked.

Aurelia turned.

“If I ascend. Will I have to go somewhere else to live?”

“No.”

The answer came so quickly that I realized how long I had wanted it.

“The others have places of their own,” she continued. “Some prefer to remain apart from the mortal world. That is how they choose to live.”

“And Othellos?”

“He would tell you the choice had already been made.”

I looked toward the nursery door.

A small thump came from beyond it.

Then Helena’s voice, asking our son how a horse had reached the floor from inside his cradle.

Aurelia smiled.

“You have seen that I can stay.”

“What changed first for you?” Evelyn asked.

Aurelia thought.

“My hearing.”

I looked at her.

“People?”

“Yes. Someone called my name from a place I could not possibly have heard.”

“Did you know what was happening?”

“No. I thought I was dreaming.”

My wife glanced at me.

I had heard only Helena.

The fire.

A cart passing somewhere below the windows.

Ordinary things.

I found I was relieved.

Aurelia noticed.

“We have time to ask questions,” she said.

I hoped she was right.

Before bed, Evelyn opened the two books Mary had given the children.

She had written the date in each.

Their first birthday.

Who had come.

What they had received.

In Carol’s book, she had begun describing the cloth door.

In Garrick’s, the boat.

She passed me the pen.

“You should add something.”

I sat beside her.

For a moment, I thought of writing about Othellos.

The possibility Thesra had named.

The things we had begun doing to keep them safe.

Then I looked at Evelyn’s careful account of our son tasting the bow of his boat.

I added that his grandfather had made me smooth it four times.

My wife read the sentence.

“Was it four?”

“At least.”

She smiled.

Aurelia came past our door carrying a lamp.

She stopped when she saw the books.

“Writing?”

“Trying to remember accurately,” I said.

“That can be difficult.”

“Evelyn is here to correct me.”

“Then you are fortunate.”

She wished us goodnight and continued toward her room.

I listened to her footsteps fade.

Then I put down the pen and rested my head against my wife’s shoulder.

“Tomorrow,” I said, “I would like a lesson that leaves the castle out of it.”

Evelyn kissed my hair.

“Ask for the basin.”

I considered my boots.

Then the eastern wall.

“The basin,” I agreed.