Chapter 12: ACT I, SCENE 5

ACT I, SCENE 5Day 28 Hours and 45 Minutes Since the Ash FellCathedral — CryptAs Vespar speaks, Kendra stays curled on her knees, fixated on a grey heap of ash. He notices that when he says rely on you, that brief sign of life returns to her. Then, when he brings up his own parents, she lifts herself, pulls her cloak even tighter around her, and steps up behind him. Silent, almost automatic, but still moving. So Vespar picks up the remainder of the camp and slings the bag over his shoulder.Further into the darkness, a corridor disguised as a void.Immediately on reaching the narrow confines of the hall, Vespar notices it.A draft. A hollow whisper through the gaps of brickwork.His steps become even more deliberate, barely disturbing the dust. Vespar can’t help noticing that Kendra mirrors him. Her steps follow his, leaving the same afterimage of their path that only a tracker would see. Once or twice, she brushes against Vespar’s leather to keep a steady pace.Eventually the path splits, and Vespar sees a maintenance grate. It catches his eye, not because it signifies a way up or out. Not because the bars have rusted or seized. He pauses.It is warped, violently bent right out of its fitting, crushed like a twig under an impossible weight.Vespar starts toward it. He runs his fingers along the masonry, finding a deep, jagged fissure where the stones have ground each other to the bone. Beneath that pulverized brickwork, his fingers run across something different. A density unlike stone. It is familiar.He brushes away the dust and rock, and there it is—the Gloom-Oak. It acts as a foundational spine within the stonework.Rising to meet his fingers, Kendra touches the wood with bandaged fingers, letting them follow the same path as Vespar’s.A hollow, raspy whisper: “My dad always said the city was founded on the roots of the world...”Vespar catches the darkness reflected in her eyes. “He hated how the logs were locked away. Said they built cathedrals with it but charged a lifetime’s allowance for scraps. Dad said the Gloom-Oak didn’t rot. So the nobles hoarded every piece of it...”