26. Cairn BanThe deserted fortress of Cairn Ban towered above Aiden in the grey light of dawn. He paused, his breath clouding in front of his face in the cold. After more than an hour’s climbing, the light of the rising sun was finally streaming over the mountaintops, but the old fortress itself was still in shadow. The mountain path, a steep and narrow thread of a trail, twisted away amongst the scree below. Aiden glanced up. There was just one last steep scramble before the mountain met the hewn stone of the fortress walls.
The walls were grey stone, grey as the mountains themselves, and had been built so that they formed a seamless barrier with the rock face of the cliffs above. Crenellated battlements cut across the sky, but Aiden could see nothing of what awaited within. Silence lay
