They walked along the wall before they finally found an empty archway. It was easily three times Heln's height and it didn't even stretch halfway up the wall. They passed through it and a different sort of silence fell over them.
She could still hear the trees outside, but they sounded farther away than they were, like waves on a distant shore. They stood in a courtyard, a huge one. It must have been lovely at some point in the past, but the immense fountain in the center was dry and the basin cracked. A nub of broken off stone thrust up from the center where a statue must have graced it. She saw an arm and part of a torso nearby. Lichen spotted every surface like rust, and some of the tiles had buckled upwards, tree roots snaking underneath them. Part of one wall had fallen with a massive tree, a glimpse of another courtyard visible through the ruinous gap.
The main building of the castle rose in front of them, huge and derelict, towers crumbling and windows gapingly empty. Buttresses of stone curved out from the main building, jutting out like an empty rib cage. The whole building moaned like it was barely clinging to life every time the wind blew.
"I don't think anyone's home," Bel stage whispered.
Rhyss gave her a nasty look, and she grinned right back.
The door must have been made of wood, at one point, but it was long gone. The stones in the empty doorway looked darker, like they were holding a record of some long-ago tragedy. Heln touched them, but just shook his head when she looked at him.
"If any magic happened here it was too long ago, there's not even a trace." He didn't bother to whisper. His voice sounded too loud and too quiet all at once.
It led to a long, tall room. Light from the crystal spilled through windows high above them, slanting off of the floor, highlighting silver dust motes. At the other end of the room was the biggest tree that Rhyss had ever seen.
It had a thick trunk; all three of them couldn't have hoped to encircle it. Wide limbs jutted out near the base, curving up against the walls. Its trunk was dark, but the leaves were a pale silver in the light that shone down directly from the ceiling.
Before Eleti, before magic became plentiful, it was said that Ihalins had worshipped trees. They considered them holy and possibly a source of magic. Now that magic was everywhere, trees that weren't a part of the Grove were considered with much less reverence. Her mother told her that the Grove was only important because of tradition. The Temple of Magic could exist without it, as could the Rising Stones, and those were the most important artifacts. The trees had never felt sacred to her.
This tree did.
It wasn't just the size of it, though that was part of it. It pulled at her, made her feel warm, and she wondered if that was how Heln felt when he sensed magic.
"I think this is the point where all of the magic in this place is anchored." Heln rubbed the side of his head and blinked, hard. "It's weird, the tree feels… alive."
"Most trees tend to be." Bel sounded distracted.
"This is different." Heln stepped closer. He was a little wobbly on his feet. "I feel like it could almost speak, you know?"
"I do." Rhyss knew exactly what he meant. It didn't feel like a tree, deep down. The only thing she could really compare it to was when she was small and she knew that her mother was home. A larger, protective presence that permeated their house, making it safe and warm.
"I feel it, too, and I'm glad we have some mysteries halfway solved, but we need to get moving," Bel said. "I don't know about you, but I don't think I can sleep next to the shiny silver wonder tree here, and we need food and water. Rhyss's canteen is nearly empty."
Rhyss shook herself a little bit. The world felt like it was tilting off of its axis. She was being sentimental about a tree, and Bel was being practical. Maybe everything had gone opposite of what it was supposed to be.
At least Heln was acting normal. For him, anyway.
"Right." Rhyss nodded. "The courtyard seemed safe enough, how about you two-"
"If you're suggesting that you're going to go off scouting on your own, I'm going to have to disappoint you." Bel said. "Heln was like… twenty feet away from us and he almost died. Like, this close." She held her fingers together.
"Your fingers are touching." Heln pointed out.
"Yes, because I still haven't decided if I'm going to kill you myself or not." Bel let her hand drop. "Look, I get the whole super Guard Trainee thing, I guess, not really my cup of tea but I get that you feel like you have to protect us. Well, you don't. Because guess what? I'm top of the class, Heln is top of his little class, and the two of us are perfectly capable of probably helping us all possibly not die."
"Is this supposed to convince me?" Rhyss stared at her.
"From now on, we stick together. We all have things we can bring to the table, we all can watch each other's backs, and, just because I feel it needs to be said, I'm not sitting in a creepy courtyard for god knows how long hoping you didn't get picked off by… I don't know… an evil giant… thing. Or something worse. Besides. Heln is my brother; we die together. You can be our honorary sister, if you want."
Rhyss was surprised. Maybe it was purely out of self-interest, but being nice was at least a
