The watchtower was older than the curse.
Its stones held a cold that had nothing to do with the weather. The chill seeped through the walls, through the floor, through the soles of my boots until it settled in my bones. I could feel it in my teeth, in my fingertips, in the raw edges of the bond that still pulsed with the aftershock of the morning's violence. The narrow slits for windows let in thin blades of light that cut across the dusty floor, each one a reminder of the hours slipping away. A spiral stair climbed into darkness, its steps worn smooth by centuries of feet that had long since turned to ash. A single lower chamber with a fire pit that still smelled of ash from the last time someone had needed this place. The wards hummed in the walls like a second heartbeat, older, meaner,
