NOVEL NEXT Chapter 29: Sound of Snowfall
A hush lingered in the air the moment the portal's glow faded. Snow clung to Albion's boots as he stepped onto ground he recognized from tales Winston had whispered during sleepless nights. The skeleton of a once-proud citadel stood in the distance, its spires sheared off and its walls listing like weary sentinels.
Winston paused first, breath catching in his throat. He stared at the broken fortress. His lips quivered around one word: "Home." Nothing else.
No one moved until Albion exhaled, heat pluming in the frigid air. "I couldn't leave her in the fields," he managed. "Not after everything." Across the rust-streaked courtyard, he glimpsed the entrance to the grove. Even from here, the ancient trees looked mournful. "She's buried at the Triskelion."
Winston's eyes flicked toward that sacred hollow, then away. "Don't," he said, a syllable an effort. His shoulders hardened, as though even one more memory might crush him.
Adele placed a hand against a shattered gate, silent as she surveyed blackened scorch marks. Wind teased her braids. Above them, low clouds slid across a pale sky, dropping flecks of white that dusted piles of fallen stone.
No footfalls. No voices. Shops and cottages stood open, windows broken. A biting breeze blew scraps of parchment along deserted streets. Where laughter and bustle once thrived, only echoes lingered. Each swirl of snow was like an elegy.
"It's so cold," Albion murmured. He leaned against a charred pillar, pressing a palm to the soot-streaked surface. He felt grief throbbing in the walls, as if the mortar itself wanted to speak of the battles it had witnessed.
Adele brushed the fallen timbers with her fingertips. "Six months here," she whispered. "Maybe more. Time… shifts."
They moved past the ruined guild hall, its pillars collapsed over half-burned tapestries. Overturned chairs, battered insignias, and fragments of armor punctuated the emptiness.
Winston said, "Fled," and paused. "Or worse." His knuckles whitened on the hilt of Masamune, that deadly blade seldom sheathed these days.
Past the guild, the remnants of the church rose in charred arches, a gaping roof open to the sullen sky. Broken pews lay scattered among half-buried remains—silent tributes to unanswered prayers. Albion caught a glimpse of tattered banners bearing the Order's crest, half-burned and fluttering in a stray draft. His stomach twisted.
Adele knelt, pressing her palm to the ground. Thin lines of light flitted around her hand. As she stood, her eyes seemed somewhere else. "He's out West," she murmured. "Sebastian. Toward the homeland of the Pendragons."
Winston's jaw tightened. "Then that's where you'll go." He looked at Albion. "Find him. Learn what he's plotting."
"You're coming with us," Albion insisted, voice rasping with urgency. The sight of Charlevoix's devastation unsettled him more than he'd ever admit. They were stronger together; Winston had proven that too many times to count.
Winston's lips curved—some distant echo of the grin he used to wear. "My ghosts aren't done with me. I have… obligations," he said. "People who need answering for what happened here." A flinch crossed his features, so brief it might have been a trick of the swirling snow. "We'll meet again at Cornwall."
Adele touched Albion's shoulder. The faint pressure was enough to hold him in place. She didn't speak; she didn't need to.
Winston turned on his heel. Albion thought he might say more—some farewell, a promise. But Winston only studied the broken city once more, as if imprinting every ruin in his mind. When he finally spoke, his voice was brittle. "I'll see you both soon," he managed. "Take care of each other."
For a heartbeat, he lingered. Masamune glinted, and shadows blurred his outline. Then he vanished into the gloom as though the darkness itself swallowed him.
Albion didn't move. His heart hammered, a steady ache that crawled under his ribs. Winston had always borne so much, and the weight on his shoulders was heavier now than ever.
"He'll be all right," Adele said softly, though the concern in her tone betrayed her. She reached out, palm upturned, letting snow dust her skin. "He fights best when he fights alone.
Albion's gaze fell on the battered remains of a signpost. Holes splintered across the wood, the letters of "Charlevoix" burned off the edges. "I feel like—" He struggled for words. "Everything we knew is gone."
Adele tilted her head toward him. "It isn't truly gone," she whispered. "All of it lives somewhere in you, in us. But we can't linger."
Reluctantly, he pulled his eyes from the wreckage. As they set off, he cast one last look over his shoulder. Through the drifting flurries, he pictured Winston standing alone on a broken parapet, dust in his hair and sorrow in his eyes.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Silence hovered until they left the outskirts of Charlevoix and came upon a grove of cypress near a half-collapsed bridge. Snow weighed the branches, forming a patch of quiet gloom. Adele glanced around and drew a small circle in the air. A flicker of energy sealed them off from prying eyes, though no living souls seemed near.
They rested beneath the trees, the air sharp with pine and cold. Albion rubbed warmth into his hands. "He… needed to do this," he said. Grief salted his voice. "He had to see— I don't think he can move forward until he's come to terms with what happened here."
Adele placed his pack on the ground, rummaging for flint. When she found it, a few sparks coaxed a tiny flame to life. "You're worried," she said, not quite a question.
Albion swallowed, blinking at the dancing ember. "He'll try to take all their burdens on himself. Seem like he always does."
Adele breathed into the flame, kindling a modest fire. "That's Winston's way. And perhaps it's how he heals."
A hush closed over them, broken by the crackle of burning tinder. Overhead, the sky darkened, stars emerging in pinpricks of light. The ruin they'd left behind remained a silent weight.
After a few moments, Adele shifted closer. "Your arm. May I see it?"
He glanced at the faded runes on his forearm, their edges nearly invisible in the dim glow. Slowly, he rolled up his sleeve. A pulse traveled under his skin, and the faint lines shimmered.
Her expression turned pensive. She traced a finger beside the markings, never quite touching them. A subtle warmth spread across Albion's flesh. In the firelight, each rune gleamed briefly, as though remembering a language only they understood.
Adele's lips moved, but no sound emerged at first. Then she exhaled, almost reverently. "I'd only heard stories," she said, voice hushed. "Of myth and memory"
"Becca said they were important," he whispered. "She never told me why." A flicker of loss creased his face. "But they're… different. I can feel something when I use magic, like these runes have their own heartbeat."
Adele lowered his sleeve, nodding. "We'll figure it out. One day at a time." She patted the ground near the fire. "Sit. Rest. You'll need strength."
Albion dropped onto the stiff grass, the cold seeping through his trousers. He stared into the flames, recalling those endless days with Becca patiently explained the cost of each spell, each spark. He remembered the slight tremor in her voice whenever she warned him: not every mage pays the same price.
Adele caught his glance. "You're thinking of her."
He rubbed at tired eyes. "Always. She taught me—" He paused, wrestling with words that threatened to flood from his mouth. "She said using power beyond your grasp is like stepping onto thin ice. Might hold. Might not."
"I taught her that," Adele spoke with a sense of pride, "She was a rebellious little headache."
"Sounds exactly like her," he smiled, "I miss our conversations, can't believe I'll never see that smile again."
A stiff wind hissed past. Sparks darted upward, swirling with flecks of snow.
"You won't walk that path alone," Adele said, leaning toward him. "We'll figure out how to keep you from falling."
He returned her gaze, saw genuine resolve there. Yet it couldn't drown the trepidation swirling in his chest. He pulled his cloak tighter. In the hush, a memory flickered—Becca's hands guiding his, her laughter when he managed his first successful spell. A pang of sadness coursed through him at the thought that Winston would never again see the friend he lost.
He let out a shaky breath. "When Winston left… he said I had more to learn than swordsmanship. He said magic was vital, especially now."
Adele's nod was almost imperceptible. "He's right. Combat alone won't shape you. There's more to you than a blade." She looked at his runes again. "We'll start small. You won't be able to burn down the forest or freeze a lake yet, if that's what you're worried about."
A wry, humorless chuckle escaped him. "I don't want to burn anything—"
"Good," she interrupted gently, "because real power is subtle. Most times, no one sees it. That's how it should be."
The wind fell silent. Their little flame and their own heartbeats were all that remained. Albion eyed the horizon where the sky stretched westward, the direction Sebastian had gone.
Somewhere out there, Winston hunted new ghosts. Somewhere ahead, Cornwall waited with secrets that might break them all.
He flicked a piece of bark into the fire. "This journey… we'll face worse than beasts, won't we? Armies. Mages. Maybe old gods for all I know."
Adele didn't deny it. "We'll adapt," she said, voice so quiet it made the night feel deeper. "And if the past taught us anything, it's that we have to keep going."
In the darkness, Albion found himself reaching for her hand. His voice trembled with a conviction he barely recognized. "I can't let this place"—he nodded at the ruined city behind them—"happen again."
Her fingers tightened around his. "We'll make certain it doesn't."
Neither spoke again until the fire dwindled to embers. Sparks glowed red, and the snow took on an eerie luminescence under the moonlight. When Adele finally released his hand, she stood and whispered soft syllables into the stillness. A faint shimmer rippled around the clearing, warding off the cold. Albion sensed an ancient hush wash through his runes, like they approved of her gentle magic. "The magic settled like a mother's hand—gentle, invisible, unmistakable."
He slept that night curled against the warmth, half-dreaming of Winston's silhouette against ravaged walls, half-remembering Becca's voice in the silver forests of her home. When morning dawned with pale sunlight and a dusting of fresh snow, he woke to the scent of charcoaled branches and the sound of Adele rifling through his satchel.
They exchanged no grand speeches. A somber readiness filled them both. Together, they gathered their belongings and stepped away from the grove, the crunch of snow marking each uncertain stride westward. Overhead, crows wheeled in the iron-gray sky, their distant caws echoing across the barren fields.
At the edge of sight, Charlevoix's ruins shimmered under the winter sun, a cracked monument to everything they'd lost—and everything that still needed to be saved. Albion's gaze lingered for one final heartbeat. He found himself whispering the words Winston never had:
"I'll come back."
When he turned away, he felt Adele's watchful presence. He didn't glance back again. The path ahead beckoned, blanketed by a quiet hush that promised answers and danger in equal measure. And somewhere out there, Winston walked his own lonely road, searching for closure among the broken stones of his homeland. Together or apart, they all pressed forward, carrying love, grief, and the fragile spark of hope into a world grown cold.