The road curved into the valley like a scar.
Mist clung low to the stones
thick as breath in winter.
The bell tower loomed in silence,
its crown shattered, its body cracked
as if it had once cried out
and was punished for it.
The ruins whispered of prayers once spoken here.
Now, there was only dust.
Statues lined the path
faceless, crumbling
as though time itself had tried to forget them.
"This town…" Francesca murmured,
"It's heavier than it looks."
Alberta didn't speak.
But beneath the folds of her robe,
her hand brushed the hilt of her dagger.
Their robes were plain
ash-colored and faded.
Hoods drawn low.
A noble's veil to hide Alberta's fire-bright hair.
Francesca's steps rang with false confidence,
but her eyes flicked too often toward shadows.
Dantes followed behind.
Silent. Unremarkable.
Just another escort
Stoic.
Lean.
Forgettable.
He moved like a shadow with a heartbeat.
Alberta walked ahead of them,
shoulders straight as if this place had once belonged to her
in a life she couldn't name.
A priest nodded as they passed,
his fingers trembling over prayer beads made of bone.
The inn crouched between two half-collapsed shrines.
Inside, the air was thick with damp incense and old regret.
Carvings of the goddess clung to cracked walls,
barely visible beneath peeling paint.
One mural showed a dawn star crumbling beneath a black sky the eyes of every figure in it, scratched out.
"Don't speak loudly here,"
the innkeeper muttered without meeting their eyes.
"They listen.
The ones that were left behind."
Alberta opened her mouth to ask more
but the woman had already turned away.
Night fell like ink spilled across parchment.
From the bell tower,
wind moved through the broken bronze mouth.
It didn't chime.
It gasped.
Francesca lingered by the door, arms crossed.
"This place is wrong.
We shouldn't stay long."
Dantes leaned against the wall,
sharpening a dagger out of habit.
"We stay until she gets answers."
In the dim room,
Alberta lit a candle
and watched the flame flicker.
Something was out there
just beyond the edge of firelight.
Watching,
like the cracked statues still had eyes.
Down the alley,
half-lost in fog and shadow,
a figure stood beneath a broken arch.
His cloak was dry despite the mist.
His hands folded behind his back.
He watched the candlelight in their window flicker
slow, steady
like a heartbeat
just beginning to panic.
And then
He smiled.
CHAPTER 10: BENEATH HOLLOW BELLS