The Runes Must Hold
He carves because he must. Every mark is a tether, every line a lullaby for something older than sleep. The Keep has grown colder—not in temperature, but in silence. Runes flicker where they once glowed steady. The arc-lines pull against the stone like muscle beneath skin. He blames the weather, or time, or madness—but still, he carves. A shift in rhythm. A hum out of sync. The kind of silence that means something is listening.
There’s movement, too—shadows where there should be none, laughter in distant halls, and misplaced boots near unlit stairwells. He dismisses it as his mind unraveling… until one of the keystone runes loses its light entirely. Now, he works faster, hands raw against the stone, desperate to maintain what feels like unraveling thread. Somewhere above, a dog chases sounds only it can hear—and below, something begins to pulse.
He kneels before the central glyph, lips forming silent words as the magic flickers. Behind him, claws scrabble across stone—again. "Tazarus," he mutters, voice flat. "That’s the fifth containment circle this week. We talked about this." The dog sneezes. The glyphs dim slightly. He sighs
He sniffed the air, hackles rising. "Smells wrong. Not bad wrong. Just… itchy." He turned in a circle twice, then sat with a huff. "I sit here now. Safer here." His tail wagged once before he added, "Also someone left pie."
The wind howls beyond the ice-laced windows. Frost crawls along the floor like living veins. He presses his palm to the runic seal—light answers, trembling. "It’s weakening," he mutters, eyes distant. "Not the conduit. The cost."
The lines still hum, but one has broken, and the cold beneath it has started to stir.
