A Gathering Storm

Ash and Embers

Emma found Wren just before the afternoon light began to thin.

The sun still hung above the plains, but its warmth had softened, stretching shadows long across the inner courtyard. Wren was seated on the low stone bench near the western wall, hands wrapped around a cup she had forgotten to drink from, watching the banners stir without wind.

“Wren.”

She looked up sharply.

Emma stood a few paces away, travel cloak already fastened, her healer’s satchel slung high against her back. There was no ceremony in her posture, no hesitation. Only urgency.

“You’re leaving,” Wren said.

Emma nodded. “Now. The other healers are already at the south gate.”

“But the rites aren’t until tonight.”

“That’s why,” Emma said quietly, stepping closer. “We can’t leave after he’s completely gone. I’m sorry.”

The words landed heavier than Wren expected.

Emma’s mouth tightened. “You know the old stories. Graves found empty days after burial. Bodies walking without breath or will. He thinks the burning will affect the wards and the creatures out there.”

Wren stared at her. “The wards are thin enough as it is, can’t you wait till they’re safer?”

Emma glanced toward the tower walls, toward the marsh beyond them. “An then what about the people out there? It will be my job now, to make sure they survive what’s out there.”

Wren’s fingers curled into fists. She did not argue. Everyone at the Shadow Tower knew why they travelled by day and burned their dead.

Only her mother had been given to stone, and entombed below the tower.

Teryn Alba had come from the Snowdrift Tower, far to the north where the ground stayed frozen even in summer. Their dead were entombed beneath stone and ice, sealed into the mountain itself. When Teryn died, her father and the Shadow Tower had honored that tradition, carving a chamber deep below the wards and laying her there wrapped in frost-threaded cloth.

No one had questioned it then.

But the swamp had grown stranger since.

Too many stories. Too many disappearances. Too many ripples through the wards that could not be explained.

“So you think the cremation will…” Wren faltered.

“Sever him,” Emma said gently. “Whatever thread still ties him to the wards. The healers think the burning will finish it. Cleanly.”

“And you don’t want to be here when it does.”

“No.” Emma’s voice was firm. “After that, no-one will be able to cross to Reed Town for a while, not till the wards stabalise.”

She hesitated, then added, “Out near Reed Town, the dark energy is steadier. Heavier, yes, but it doesn’t lash out the way it does here. The creatures there know what they are. They don’t go mad.”

Wren frowned. “But they’re closer to the swamp.”

“They’re farther from the Light,” Emma said. “That’s the difference. The interference from the rest of Calreands, all that music from the Aetherlight pressing outward, it agitates the dark things. Near the tower, they’re trapped between forces. They panic. They attack.”

She shifted the strap of her satchel. “Reed Town knows how to live with it. The balance is… quieter.”

A bell sounded in the distance. Not the tower bell. The south gate.

“We’re being escorted,” Emma continued. “Aer Halvek is taking us. He knows the old routes. He won’t wait until after the ceremony.”

Wren stood abruptly. “You can’t just go.”

Emma stepped forward and caught her hands. “I have to. And you have to let me.”

Their foreheads touched briefly.

“I dreamed,” Emma whispered. “But I’ll send it to you properly. With the reed pen. When I’m settled.”

Wren swallowed hard. “You’ll come back.”

Emma pulled away, smiling sadly. “Not soon. Someday”

Then she was gone, boots already turning toward the gate, leaving Wren with the sinking light and a hollow where certainty had been.

Night fell slow and deliberate.

The funeral rites were held in the lower court, where stone dipped inward like a waiting bowl. White marked the mourners, soft cloth layered over the black garments that were the tower’s true colors. Pale against dark. Light held carefully in shadow.

The pyre stood at the center, built of marshwood and resin-rich logs that would burn hot and long. Aer Mikkel’s body was wrapped simply, no sigils, no binding marks. Nothing left to anchor him.

Wren stood closest.

Drew was beside her.

He did not speak. He did not reach for her. But when her knees weakened as the first flames were lit, he steadied her without hesitation, his arm firm around her back.

The fire took quickly.

It burned white at first, then deepened to gold and blue, the flames twisting higher than the walls. The wards trembled, a low resonance passing through stone and bone alike.

The fire burned higher once night fully claimed the sky.

The lower court filled with the soft murmur of layered voices, prayers spoken in different traditions but shaped to the same purpose.

Slowly lights blurred and glowed a bit brighter, Wren looked around but no-one else was alarmed. Slowly shapes appeared in the light, figures standing in the crowd watching the pyre, she recognised her grandmother among them, bright and ethereal. Maud glanced at her and frowned, sternly she made a shooing motion with her hands.

Wren shook her head and looked away.

On the other side the delegation from the Carved City stood together in white, luminous even in shadow, their light pressing gently against the dark stone. Among them, Andra was unmistakable.

He stood straight-backed and solemn, hands folded before him, his expression appropriately grave. When the flames surged and the wards trembled, his gaze lifted sharply, alert, calculating. Not afraid, but attentive. As though already measuring what this severing meant for the tower’s future.

Wren felt his attention settle on her more than once.

Not possessive. Assessing.

Drew remained at her side, silent as stone, his presence a quiet counterweight to the press of eyes and expectation. When the heat of the pyre made her sway, he shifted closer, not touching, but ready.

Across the court, Thade moved with deliberate ease.

She did not stand among the Aers of the tower. Instead, she placed herself near Andra, close enough to be noticed without seeming to intrude. Her white dress was cut low and clinging to her curves, her dark hair unbound tonight, falling loose down her back.

When Andra spoke quietly to one of the capital Aethers, Thade leaned in as if to listen, her voice low, her expression intent.

“It’s said the wards here are among the oldest still standing,” she murmured, just loud enough for him alone. “They respond differently than those closer to the Light.”

Andra glanced at her, curiosity flickering. “You have studied ward behavior?”

“I was trained by Granny Maud herself,” Thade replied smoothly. “And our Aether, well I have learned from him as well…naturally.”

His gaze lingered longer this time.

Later, when the flames settled into a steady, consuming burn, Thade offered him a cup of spiced wine, her fingers brushing his in a way that might have been accidental. Andra accepted it with a nod, his attention drawn, if not entirely given.

Wren saw it all from the corner of her eye.

She did not look long.

The fire worked through the last of the night, sparks lifting like pale embers into the dark. The wards pulsed once more, deep and resonant, then stilled. Whatever thread had bound her father to the tower loosened, then slipped free.

Relief came with it.

So did exhaustion.

Somewhere deep within the tower, something loosened.

Wren felt it like a breath released after being held too long.

Wren’s knees finally gave. Drew caught her before she struck the stone, his arm solid around her shoulders, pulling her close without thought or permission. Her forehead pressed briefly against his chest, the heat of him grounding her as the world blurred.

“It’s done,” he murmured, meant only for her.

She did not answer.

Sleep took her where she stood.

Dawn crept in pale and unsure, light bleeding slowly into the court as the fire finally died.

She remembered the smell of smoke in her hair. The ache behind her eyes. The weightlessness that followed grief when the body could no longer hold it upright.

She woke to quiet.

Morning light filtered pale and uncertain through the narrow windows of her chamber, ash-soft and muted. The smell of smoke lingered faintly, woven into her hair and clothes.

For a moment she did not remember how she had come here.

Then she felt him.

Drew sat beside her bed, slumped forward in exhaustion, his cloak folded neatly at his feet. One hand rested on the mattress near her hip, not touching, but close enough that she could feel the warmth of it.

“You carried me,” she said softly.

He startled, then nodded. “You wouldn’t wake. I didn’t think… it didn’t seem right to leave you there.”

Her fingers curled into the blanket. “Thank you.”

Silence settled between them, heavier now in the daylight. Less protected by ceremony.

“The tower is observing rest today,” Drew said after a moment. “Andra agreed to delay any formal discussions.”

She almost laughed. Almost.

Wren pushed herself upright, the movement slower than she intended. The world tilted briefly. Drew reached for her automatically, steadying her with one hand at her back.

They froze.

Neither of them pulled away.

“Stay,” she said, the word escaping before she could temper it. “Just today.”

His jaw tightened.

“I shouldn’t,” he said quietly. “People will notice. Andra—”

“I know,” she interrupted. Her voice was steadier than she felt. “I just don’t want to be alone today.”

Drew’s hand remained at her back, warm, certain.

“I want to be here,” he admitted, just as softly. “That’s the problem.”

She met his eyes then, really looked at him. The discipline. The care. The restraint pulled so tight it hurt to see.

“I won’t ask you to cause trouble,” she said. “Just… stay close.”

A long breath left him.

“I can stay,” he said at last. “As an Aether. As support.”

Her lips curved faintly. “For today, that’s enough.”

He nodded, though his gaze lingered on her longer than propriety allowed.

Outside, the tower lay quiet, ash settling into stone, wards listening with new attentiveness.

And somewhere beyond duty and fire and expectation, the day stretched open, fragile and uncertain, with shadows creeping beneath. The black book and the dead... a forgotten reminder that her time was running out.