Chapter 153 Ruins and Rot

Chapter 153 Ruins and Rot
VISCA -

The horses pushed through the narrow road with their heads low and steam blowing from their nostrils. Frost had gathered on the grass beside the road, and a thin layer covered the rocks under their hooves. Tall trees crowded the path, their branches bowing under the frost. Every so often, a harsh wind would blow and send the remaining dead leaves still attached to the trees scattering across their path.
Visca kept his horse at a steady pace. Behind him, Anahi adjusted herself in the saddle for the fourth time in an hour. Leather creaked beneath her, and the faint hitch in her breath told him that her injured hand had begun to ache around the reins. She didn't complain, even though the road had narrowed, the cold had sharpened, and the weight of her gear had pulled her shoulders stiff.
He should have appreciated the silence. Instead, it sat against his back like another rider.
"Loosen your knees," he said without turning. "If you grip the saddle like an enemy, the horse will treat you like one."
The leather behind him shifted. "Yes, sir."
Visca glanced back. "Do not spend the whole mission saluting every correction. Just adjust yourself and ride."
Her mouth closed, and for a moment, only the horses moved beneath them. Then she loosened her legs and settled lower in the saddle. "I understand."
They rode another mile before the road dipped toward a dried creek bed. Visca pulled the folded map from inside his coat and held it against his thigh. The marked bend was there, near land where the creek curved around stone.
He dismounted and looped his reins around a branch.
Anahi climbed down slowly, landing with care before she stroked her mare's neck. Her boots sank into frost-encrusted mud, but she steadied herself and waited for instructions.
Visca studied the creek, the rocks, and the broken rise of land beyond it. "The structure should be here."
Anahi scanned the trees.
"There's nothing," he said.
She didn't answer right away. Her gaze fixed on a pale patch beneath a leaning pine where frost had gathered thick over dead needles. After a moment, she crouched. "The frost is wrong there."
Visca looked where she'd pointed. At first, he saw only roots, mud, and winter-killed bracken. Then he noticed the thin depression trailing between two trees. It was too narrow for a deer path and too deliberate for a runoff. Wax clung to the underside of one root in a pale smear, hidden where a standing man would never have seen it.
His jaw tightened. "Lead."
Anahi looked at him quickly, as if she expected a correction, but then she moved ahead.
The path wound between trees and stones until the air changed. It grew damp, sour, and strangely still. Visca brushed aside dead ivy and found the shrine tucked into the hill like something had crawled there just to die.
The building was hardly larger than a woodshed. Half the roof had collapsed, and roots pressed through the stones. Blackened symbols marked the lintel. Melted wax coated the floor in old lumps, some grey with dirt, some pale enough to have been left recently. A low altar sat against the back wall, its surface carved with Latara's mark.
Anahi stopped at the threshold. "People still come here?"
"People come to many places they should fear."
Visca stepped inside, and the smell of rot pressed against his tongue. His hand tightened around the iron sledgehammer he'd carried with him from the horse. Bones filled the cracks between the altar stones. Most were from animals, but not all of them.
A strip of blue cloth had been tied to a nail near the altar, the fabric faded but still fine enough that it didn't belong in a place like this.
His fingers went cold before he touched it.
Savonnuh's face rose behind his eyes, pale and tear-streaked in the library as she begged not to be sent North. He'd dressed his command to her in family duty and told himself that a daughter could be placed wherever a father needed her most.
"Visca?" Anahi asked from behind him. The sound of his name pulled his attention more sharply than another "sir" would have. He released the cloth and turned.
Her eyes were on the altar. "Why would someone bring pretty things here?"
He looked back at the blue strip but didn't answer her. Instead, he lifted the hammer and struck the altar.
The first blow cracked through the shrine with a blow that sounded like splitting bone. Dust fell from the broken roof, and Anahi stepped back before catching herself. Visca struck again and again. Stone chipped beneath iron until Latara's symbol warped into meaningless scars.
They worked until sweat dampened Visca's collar despite the cold. He scraped symbols from the doorway while Anahi gathered the bones for burial away from the altar. He broke the offering bowls, salted the floor, and tore down the rotten beams. When the shrine groaned, Anahi dragged the last bundle clear before Visca kicked the weakened support free.
The roof folded inward with a heavy crash. Dead leaves, dirt, and old ash spilled over the broken stones. Dust lifted around them, and Visca spat into the mud and looked over the ruin until he was certain nothing marked with Latara's name still stood upright.
Anahi crouched near the fallen altar. Visca wiped his brow with the back of his wrist. "What is it?"
She reached into the hollow beneath a cracked stone and pulled out a small braid of pale hair tied with a black thread. The hair was clean, and the thread had not faded. Wax dusted one end where it had been hidden from the weather.
Visca crossed to her and took it.
This place was still in use. The thought sat heavy as the braid lay light across his palm. His stomach tightened as if the strands held weight.
"Wrap it," he said. "Alpha Dax will need to see it."
Anahi pulled cloth from her pack and did as he'd ordered.
He burnt the rest of the shrine and made camp beyond the creek before night could fall. Visca built the fire while Anahi tended to the horses. She kept her injured hand turned away from him, but blood had soaked through the wrap by the time she sat near the warmth of the fire.
"Give me your hand," he said.
She stiffened. "It's fine."
"I didn't ask if it was fine."
After a pause, she held it out. Her fingers twitched as he cleaned it but she didn't pull away.
"You should have told me that it'd opened."
"I could still work." She watched him wrap the wound again. "You looked angry when you saw the blue cloth. How come?"
Visca tied the last knot and released her hand.
For a moment, only the fire spoke between them. Sparks rose, and the cold pressed in close. "I had a daughter once," he finally said. Anahi waited as Visca reached for another piece of wood and set it across the flames. "Blue was her favorite color."
His eyes flicked back to the broken altar, where places still smoldered. It had been rotting, but it hadn’t been empty.