The Wall was older than the city it enclosed.
Older than the cobbled streets, older than the river bridges, older than the names people called themselves.
Nobody could say who built it, or why. The historians argued it was a remnant from an ancient war, a fortification against a long-forgotten enemy. The priests claimed it was divine protection — a gift from gods who no longer spoke to men. Others whispered that it was a prison wall, built not to keep danger out, but to keep something in.
Most people didn't care. The Wall had been there yesterday, it was here today, and it would be here tomorrow.
Life inside went on.
The city was a knot of winding streets and stacked stone houses, leaning in toward one another as though sharing secrets. Markets bloomed like patches of color in the gray stone, stalls spilling over with bread, salted fish, and bundles of dried herbs. The air always carried a mix of scents — woodsmoke, baking rye, river damp, and, on certain days, the sharp tang of rain against the Wall's pale face.
Children played in the alleys, darting between carts and shouting over the bell tower's chime. Old men sat on low stools in the sun, playing slow games of stones-and-shells, their eyes half on the board, half on the shadows the Wall cast.
Everyone knew someone who lived near the Wall. They said you could tell by the way those families kept their doors locked at night and their voices low when speaking of the Wall.
The Vince family was one of those.
---
Carlo had lived all his life in the same narrow house, its back wall barely thirty steps from the Wall itself. The pale monolith rose above the roofline, blocking out the western sky. In the mornings, when the sun came up on the other side, the Wall was almost gentle, its face washed in gold. In the afternoons, as the shadow stretched over the house, it seemed to lean closer, swallowing the light.
His father had once told him, "The Wall watches, even when you're not looking." Carlo hadn't understood then. He wasn't sure he understood now.
What he did remember, as clearly as a cut that never healed, was the night his father left.
---
It had been raining, the kind that slicked the stones and turned the air into a silver curtain. Carlo had woken to the sound of voices — low, urgent — coming from the front room. He padded barefoot down the hall, his shirt clinging to him with the damp.
His mother stood by the hearth, pale and rigid, her hands clenched in her skirts. Across from her was a man in the gray cloak of the city guard. His hood was drawn low, shadowing his face, but his voice was flat and certain.
"It's time."
Carlo's father didn't argue. He was already dressed for travel, his pack slung over one shoulder. He didn't even look surprised.
"Where are you going?" Carlo had asked from the doorway.
His father turned, his expression unreadable. For a moment, Carlo thought he saw something like relief in his eyes — and something like dread.
"I'll be back," he said.
It was a lie.
His father crossed the threshold and vanished into the rain with the guard. Carlo ran to the door, but his mother's hands gripped his shoulders hard enough to hurt.
"You do not follow," she whispered.
Through the sheet of rain, Carlo thought he saw the Wall's pale face shiver — just once — before the night swallowed them both.
---
Years passed. His father never returned. Neither had his grandfather before him, nor his great-grandfather, nor any Vince head of household in living memory. The duty was spoken of rarely, and never in detail.
Life pressed on, as it always did.
Carlo worked odd jobs in the market, helped his mother tend the small garden, and learned the quiet patterns of the city. Some days, the Wall felt distant, no more threatening than the weather. Other days, especially in the deep hours of night, he could almost hear it — a low hum, so faint it might have been a dream.
When the city celebrated its festivals, they hung lanterns from wires strung between rooftops, their warm glow casting the Wall in shades of amber and gold. People danced in the streets, drank from clay cups, and sang songs that had nothing to do with the Wall.
But on the edges of the crowd, in the shadowed corners, the old ones would sit and watch the Wall. Their faces were still.
And if you asked them what they were waiting for, they would not answer.
---
It was in those years that Carlo learned the city's rules — the spoken ones, and the unspoken.
Spoken: Never climb the Wall.
Unspoken: Never ask why.
Those who lived far from the Wall could forget it for weeks at a time. But for Carlo, it was a constant presence. Its smooth face caught the light differently depending on the season. In summer, it gleamed almost white; in winter, it dulled to the color of bone.
Sometimes, when he was walking home in the quiet, he could swear he heard a faint vibration under his feet.
And once, when he was sixteen, he dreamed of standing before the Wall's base. In the dream, there was a hairline crack running through the stone, and from that crack came a light that seemed to breathe.
When he woke, the air in his room was cold, and the hum was real.
He told no one.
---
Carlo Vince grew into a man in the shadow of the Wall, and like everyone else, he carried its presence without speaking of it. But the memory of his father's departure never left him. Nor did the unspoken truth, passed from one Vince to the next, that someday the Wall would change again — and when it did, it would be his turn to walk beyond it.
And like those before him… he would not come back.
---
And so the Wall waited.