The Soul’s Chorus

Chapter 7

The silver chain was a circle of cold fire. It burned through the afternoon, through the bland meal she could not taste, through the endless, silent hours in her rooms. Kaelen was a quiet presence by the door. The itch-burn on her skin made it hard to think. It was a constant whisper from Corbin. I own you. I can hurt you in pretty ways.

As twilight began to bleed the color from the sky, a desperate need rose in Chloe. A need for air that wasn’t perfumed with captivity. A need for a place that was hers.

“I wish to walk,” she said, her voice rough from disuse.

Kaelen simply nodded. He fetched her cloak. His eyes, as he held it, went to the thin line of red, irritated skin visible above her collar. His jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

She did not head for the garden. She walked past it, toward the older, wilder part of the grounds near the manor’s edge. The path here was less tended. Roots clawed at the flagstones. The trees grew closer, their branches like bony fingers against the purple-grey sky. The air cooled and smelled of pine and decaying leaves.

Kaelen followed, his three step distance a silent echo. He was more alert here. His eyes scanned the deepening shadows between the trees. This was closer to the true forest. It held different dangers.

Chloe moved with a purpose she usually hid. She slipped between two large holly bushes, their leaves sharp and dark. She stepped off the path entirely, onto a carpet of soft, damp moss. Kaelen hesitated for only a second before following. His duty was to follow, even here.

They walked until the manor’s lights were just a faint glow behind them. The forest grew quiet, the way it does when it holds its breath.

Then, they came to the clearing. In its center stood the Sentinel.

It was an ancient, giant weeping willow. Its trunk was massive, gnarled and twisted with age, like a bent old giant. Its long, trailing branches hung down to the forest floor, creating a living curtain of pale green leaves. It was called the Weeping Sentinel. It was Chloe’s secret. Her only secret.

Without a glance back at Kaelen, she parted the leafy curtain and stepped inside.

The world changed. Inside the circle of branches was a hidden room. The air was still and cool. The sound of the forest muted. The last of the twilight filtered through the canopy in soft, green-gold shafts. The ground was bare earth, packed smooth by time and, secretly, by her feet.

Here, she could breathe.

Kaelen stopped outside the curtain of leaves. He did not enter her sanctuary. He stood guard, a dark shape through the veil of green. He gave her this small privacy.

Chloe walked to the great trunk. She sank to her knees in the soft dirt. She let her forehead rest against the rough, cool bark. It smelled of life, of patience, of centuries. A sob, thick and hot, climbed her throat. She choked it back. She would not cry. But she could tremble. And she did.

Slowly, she raised her hand. With one finger, she began to trace words into a smooth patch of dirt at the base of the tree. She wrote what she could not say.

Silver chain. Gilded cage. Clipped wings.

The words were clumsy. The feeling was not. With each scratched letter, a little of the cold burn in her neck seemed to flow down her arm and into the earth. The tree took it. It held her silence.

She wrote another line.

I am the hawk.

She sat back on her heels, staring at the words. Her secret truths written in dirt that the next rain would wash away. It was the only freedom she had left.

---

Kaelen watched the green curtain. He could not see her clearly, just a blur of grey dress through the leaves. He heard the soft, ragged sound of her breathing. He heard the faint scratch of her finger in the dirt.

His own chest felt tight. He had seen the aviary. He had heard Corbin’s lessons. He had seen the chain fastened. He was a Lunarth, a guardian of this realm, and he had been made to stand and watch a slow, elegant cruelty. It sickened him.

He forced his eyes away from her hidden form. He was still on duty. He scanned the clearing’s edge, the dark spaces between the oak and ash trees. The forest was watching. He could feel its old, sleepy gaze.

Then, his eyes caught a flicker.

Movement. Not an animal. Something taller. Slender.

Deep in the shadows, maybe fifty paces away, stood a figure. They were perfectly still, wrapped in the gloom of the trees, almost a part of them. Kaelen’s senses sharpened. His pupils widened, pulling in the faint light.

It was a person. Dressed in layers of grey and charcoal cloth that seemed to eat the light. Their face was pale, a moon-flash in the dark, but he could not make out their features. They were not looking at him. They were looking directly at the Weeping Sentinel. At the place where Chloe knelt hidden.

A cold alertness shot through Kaelen. Who? A spy for Corbin? Someone with worse intentions?

He took a slow, silent step to the side, placing his body more squarely between the watcher and the willow. His hand rested on the hilt of the short knife at his belt.

The figure did not move. They did not startle. They simply stood.

Then, as Kaelen watched, the figure’s head turned, slowly. The pale face now aimed its gaze at him. Kaelen felt the weight of the look. It was not hostile. It was assessing. Knowing.

The figure lifted one hand. Not in a threat. The fingers moved in a slow, deliberate gesture. They touched their own lips, then extended their fingertips outward, toward the Sentinel, toward Kaelen. It was a gesture of silence. Of secrecy. Then, the hand dropped.

Before Kaelen could react, the figure took one step backward into a pool of deep shadow. And vanished. There was no sound. No rustle of leaves. They were just gone.

Kaelen stared, his heart pounding. An Umbra. It had to be. The secret-keepers. The walkers-in-shadow. Lyra spoke of them with reverence and caution. They see everything, she had said. And they only show themselves when it means something.

Why would an Umbra be watching Chloe?

He looked back at the green curtain. The soft scratching sound had stopped. He could hear her calm, even breathing now. She had found her moment of peace, unaware that her sorrow had two witnesses: a guardian full of conflict, and a phantom full of secrets.

The burn of the silver chain, the whispered words in the dirt, the hidden watcher in the woods it was all connected. Kaelen felt the truth of it like a stone in his gut. Lyra’s words about old scrolls and anchors echoed in his mind. This wasn’t just a punishment detail. He was standing on the edge of something deep and dark.

He kept his vigil, his eyes now scanning the tree line with new intensity. The forest no longer felt just sleepy. It felt aware. And in its ancient, watchful heart, secrets were stirring, circling the girl with the silver-streaked hair who wrote her pain in the dirt under a weeping tree.