Chapter Four: Descent from Ice and the Ashen Man

The Clayr said their goodbyes with silence and ceremony.

They braided charms into my hair—three strands for Sight, for memory, and for hope—and tucked a Charter-etched compass into the leather pouch at my belt. Aunt Serah handed me a wrapped package that I knew contained more than just waybread and winterfruit. It was light, but pulsed faintly with heat.

“Open it only when the fog thickens,” she said.

And then came the hard part.

Leaving.

The Glacier, towering and serene, held the Clayr’s ancient halls within its heart like a secret no one had earned. I had been born to this ice. I had learned to walk in its cold and dream in its glow. But now I stood before the great carved gate at the southern mouth of the mountain, cloaked and booted, heart thudding like a frightened drum.

With me stood Maen, a Clayr Guard only five years my senior, tall and quiet, her spear as long as I was tall. She didn’t say much, but her green eyes missed nothing.

Our path would wind through the Ice Cut—a narrow, crag-split path leading into the southern foothills—and eventually down into the valley known as Grey Hollow, where old outposts and minor Charter towns dotted the landscape.

We would travel lightly, by foot and falcon. Inkwing flew ahead, scouting the sky with charcoal wings and an ill-tempered cry.

The first two days passed with little trouble.

We crossed frost-slick bridges and huddled in ruined signal towers once used to send light messages to the Abhorsen’s keep. Maen kept her spear close, even when we rested. She said little. I appreciated the quiet.

On the third day, we began to descend into the lower hills—still snowbound, but streaked with patches of thawed heather and stone. A strange scent filled the air as we made camp near a dry streambed.

Ash.

That night, I had another vision.

Not of the Wurm-Cairn. Not of the boy.

Of him.

A man in grey robes, stitched with ink-black thread. He carried no bell, no blade. But the air around him pulsed wrong. His face was pale, lips nearly blue, and his eyes—

—his eyes were gone.

Two pits of swirling dust, like the stars had been pulled out and crushed into his skull.

He was kneeling by a corpse. An old woman. A Charter Mage by the look of her robes. Her throat was marked with the Broken Sigil, a twisting rune used in unbinding rituals—an ancient, forbidden form of necromancy.

And the grey man was whispering to her soul.

“She’s found him,” he said, voice soft as rot. “Send that message to your master. The boy is waking the Cairn.”

I jerked awake.

Maen was already standing, spear in hand.

“You Saw something.”

I nodded. “We’re not alone out here.”

The next morning, we found signs of the dead mage.

Charter-scarring in the snow. Burned runes. Footprints that simply stopped.

Maen checked the wind. “There’s no one living close by. No villages for another day’s travel.”

“What about the creature I Saw?” I asked. “The man?”

She looked at me grimly. “That was no man.”

By midday, Inkwing returned, shrieking.

He carried something—scraps of parchment in his claws.

I unrolled it. My hands trembled as I read the familiar curling Charter-writing.

It was written by a Clayr seer, not long ago. But the name signed at the bottom made my stomach twist:

Eredan.
Clayr. Vanished. Presumed dead.

Maen paled. “That’s impossible. Eredan disappeared over twenty years ago. He would be older than the Sight-Mothers now.”

But the note was fresh. Written only two days past.

We reached a ruined watchtower by dusk. There, hidden under broken floorboards and Charter-wards long gone dim, we found signs of ritual work.

A blood bowl. A cracked bell, rusted beyond saving. And in the center—

—a sigil burned into the earth, shaped like a spiral tower made of ribs.

The mark of the Wurm-Cairn.

“He’s awakening it,” I whispered.

Maen nodded. “And he’s not alone.”

As night fell, the air grew still. No insects. No wind. No sound but the cracking of our fire.

And from the darkness beyond the camp, a voice like dry leaves whispered:

“You cannot stop the waking. You are already too late.”

We rose, weapons ready. But there was nothing to see.

Only a shape in the woods. Pale robes. Dusty footprints.

The man with the hollow eyes.

Watching.

And then gone.

I turned to Maen. “We have to move faster. This isn’t a warning—it’s a hunt.”

She only nodded and began to pack.

We would head south through the old paths, to the ancient Charter town of Nestowe, where the Abhorsen kept a minor tower—and where the boy from my vision, Arlo, might be headed.

But something else was racing ahead of us.

Something with no face, no voice, and a will older than death.