Chapter 154 What Was Left Behind

Chapter 154 What Was Left Behind
VISCA -

Frost clung to Anahi's bandage when she tightened her reins the next morning.
Visca noticed the white crust along the edge of the linen, then the way her fingers loosened before she corrected her grip. Ash from the broken shrine had flaked off onto her cloak and had since smeared across her jaw. He watched as she worked her horse through the cold creek bed after packing up camp with her bandaged hand.
"She hasn't complained once." His wolf said quietly, making Visca wonder what had happened to make her so quiet.
He should have found the silence useful. Instead, it dragged at his shoulders.
"Keep your wrist straight," he said. "You'll pull the wound open again if you fight the reins."
Anahi adjusted, and once more there was no frustration on her face.
They rode until the pines thinned and the road dropped toward a village settled in frost and smoke. Chimneys stood crooked over low houses, and narrow paths had been worn through the hard mud between doors. A few children played near a grain house until they saw Visca's horse. Then one of them ran inside, and the others followed fast enough that one slipped on the frozen ground and scrambled up on both hands.
By the time Visca reached the first house, doors had closed.
He dismounted near the well. Anahi stayed behind him with both horses while villagers watched from windows and half-opened doors.
An old man came out of the blacksmith's shed, wiping his hands on a rag. "Can I help you, sir?"
Visca took Dax's parchment from his coat and unfolded it enough to show the mark near the village. "There's an old shrine near here."
The man's fingers tightened around the rag. "No shrine."
"Think carefully."
"I've lived here for sixty years." The man looked at the frost-dark ground between them instead of Visca's face. "No shrine."
A woman carrying a basket stopped near the well. When Visca turned toward her, she dropped her gaze and pulled the basket higher against her chest. The scent of fear moved through the village faster than smoke.
"Latara," Visca said.
The woman flinched so hard the basket tipped, spilling turnips into the mud.
When no one moved to help her, Anahi did. She crouched, gathering the vegetables quickly, but her eyes weren't on the basket. They moved over the children watching from behind a cracked door, then toward the narrow land behind the grain house.
When Anahi returned the basket, she stepped back to Visca's side. "They don't look at the woods," she said quietly. "But the children do."
Visca followed her gaze.
Behind the grain house, a shallow drainage ditch cut through frozen weeds and hard mud. No tracks crossed it, and every path bent around it like everyone wanted to avoid it.
He looked back at the old man, and sweat had gathered at the man's temple despite the cold.
Visca walked toward the grain house.
"No one goes there," the man called.
Visca didn't stop when he answered. "You said there was nothing there."
The grain house smelled of mold, old straw, and damp wood. Inside, the floorboards bowed under his weight. Anahi moved along the wall, her eyes tracking the dust. She stopped near a stack of broken crates and pushed one aside with her boot.
A rusted ring lay set into the floor. Visca gripped it and pulled. The trapdoor resisted, then opened with a groan that made someone outside whisper a prayer. Cold air rose from beneath the floor.
The celar was low enough that Vida had to duck. Anahi followed with the lantern, its flame shaking in her uninjured hand. Bowls of grain sat along the edges, black with mold. Candle stubs filled cracks in the wall. Latara's mark had been carved into the far stones, and names had been scratched beneath it.
Visca's shoulders brushed the ceiling as he stepped closer.
His stomach tightened.
How many people had known? How many had walked over this floor, ground their grain, fed their children, and told themselves the cellar beneath them didn't matter?
His knuckles struck stone before he realized he had lifted the hammer.
The first blow split Latara's mark through the center. The second took the lower curve. He struck until stone dust filled his nose. Anahi broke bowls behind him, her breath short but steady. Neither spoke until the mark had been reduced to scars.
When they climbed out, the village elder was waiting with several others near the well.
"It was there before my father's father," the elder said. His voice shook, though he tried to hide it "We don't worship. We only leave what was always left."
Visca crossed the yard and stopped close enough that the man had to lift his chin to keep looking.
"Cowardice wearing tradition's cloak is still cowardice."
The elder's mouth trembled. "We have children here."
"So you fed them fear to keep them quiet?" Heat moved under his skin, and his hand twitched toward the blade at his side. He wanted punishment, and his wolf wanted teeth and blood and the sharp lesson of pain.
Then he felt Anahi standing just behind his right shoulder. He heard the careful way she breathed, and he lowered his hand.
"You will fill that cellar before nightfall," he said. "Every name carved there will be copied and sent to Alpha Dax. If another offering is left in this village, the person who leaves it and the person who hides it will answer to the crown."
The elder bowed so low his back shook.
Visca mounted without look at him.
They reached the second marked place near sunset. It sat outside a smaller settlement, not hidden under floorboards or tucked in a hill, but standing beside the road where anyone could see it. A broken statue of the Goddess leaned beneath a dead oak. Latara's symbol had been carved over the statue's heart, and black thread bound its stone hands together.
Anahi stopped before it. "They just left her like this?"
"Yes." Visca murmured.
"If they knew it was wrong, why didn't they stop?"
He looked at the stone face. "Because knowing and stopping take different strengths, and most are lacking in the latter."
Anahi said nothing after that.
They cut the thread, scraped Latara's mark from the statue, and cleared the offerings. Among them was a soft black cloth, the kind used for a cradle. Visca was holding it between his fingers when Anahi came up to his side with the map. "It looks like the next stop is a chapel?"
He looked down at what she was pointing at. Farther North, beyond the last road Dax had marked, sat a blank space near the old border ridge. There was no village or name, just a small notation in faded ink.
Abandoned Chapel
Visca folded the infant cloth into a clean square and placed it with the braid.
The first shrine had been rotting, the next had been hidden, and this one had stood in the open, bound and carved while people walked past it uncaring.
As darkness gatherd around the road, Visca prepared to head out toward the northern Ridge.