Chapter 28 – Pulse Beneath the Silence
The rain had stopped hours ago, but its smell still lingered in the stone corridors of Celin's manor. Moonlight slipped through high windows and made the walls gleam, as if the house itself were remembering the storm. Luin stood by a tall window, watching mist slide across the gardens. His reflection in the glass trembled like a ghost unsure of its shape.
He felt it again — a slow, deep pulse underfoot that had nothing to do with his own heart. It rose from the earth and settled into him.
Celin's voice broke the quiet. "You felt it too."
He turned. She sat near the fireplace, her golden hair dulled by the low light, the flames catching in her eyes like small, tired suns. Willem leaned against the wall, cloak still damp, arms folded as if to hold himself together.
"That thing under the root," Luin said, choosing his words, "it's still there. It hasn't stopped since last night."
Willem gave a short, measured nod. "It won't. The Church sealed it long ago, but nothing made by men lasts forever."
"Is it after me?" Luin asked, a question that sounded small even to his own ears.
Celin looked at him with careful calm. "No. It's older than your scars, older than the first seal you carry. But your awakening stirred the layer it slept under — like a wounded animal hearing another heartbeat for the first time in ages."
Luin stared at the floor. "Then the Church will come."
"They will," Willem said. "They do not forgive echoes. Not ones this loud."
Celin rose and walked among the shelves, the room smelling of burned paper and old ink. Maps lay scattered on the desk — diagrams of the city, charcoal sketches of tunnels beneath the district. A faint hum of wards hung in the air, as if bees were trapped inside glass.
"If the seal breaks?" Luin asked.
Willem's eyes met the window for a moment. "Then the Church won't be the first to bleed."
Silence settled, awkward and heavy. Celin's expression softened at last. "For now we observe. Tomorrow you'll come with me and Willem to the upper market. We need supplies. There are people who still owe my family favors."
"You trust them?" Luin asked.
She gave a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. "No. But they trust gold."
Morning arrived pale and thin behind clouds. The manor was empty and echoing; Luin's boots sounded too loud on marble as he followed Willem through a corridor lined with stern ancestral portraits. Celin moved ahead, silent and composed.
Outside, a carriage waited, dark wood glinting like polished bone. Guards acknowledged them with curt nods and kept their eyes low when they passed Luin.
The road to the upper district wound through layers of the city stacked like different centuries arguing with each other. Stone arches met cold steel; old cathedrals leaned over markets filled with voices polished by money. By the time they reached the wealthy quarter, the air seemed perfumed by coin.
They stepped into a world of stalls hawking crystals, incense, fine gloves, and fruits from distant isles. Everything smelled of trade.
"Stay close," Willem murmured. "This place smiles only while it's counting."
Celin moved through the crowd like someone people made room for without thinking. Her family crest glinted on her ring, a subtle warning. Merchants bowed, eyes flicking between respect and a buried fear.
Luin watched them — the way their civility sat on top of something sharper. He had never belonged here, but he knew the rhythm: the hush of bargaining, the contempt hidden beneath polite words.
Near a fountain, a group of men in white cloaks — Church agents — spoke with a jeweler, parchment in hand. Willem stiffened.
"Agents," he muttered. "They're already sniffing."
Celin walked on without changing pace. "Ignore them. If they knew about the pulse, they'd have burned the street by now."
Luin kept his head down near a stall full of mechanical trinkets, pretending interest. "What if they trace it back to the manor?"
Celin's gaze was steady. "Then I'll remind them my family's neutrality predates their saints."
They stopped in a small shop that smelled of cedar and old pages, stacked with talismans, vials, and sealed books. An old man behind the counter looked up; his eyes were cloudy but sharp.
"Lady Celin," he said. "You come when the wind changes."
"Then the wind must be restless," she answered.
He gave a dry chuckle and glanced at Luin. "And this must be the one carrying the whispers."
Luin froze. "What did you say?"
The man smiled without teeth. "Whispers travel faster than truth. Be careful not to believe them all."
Before Luin could press him, Celin interrupted. "We need bindings. Strong ones. Old material — pre-Church if possible."
The shopkeeper disappeared behind a curtain. Willem leaned close to Luin. "Don't let talk stick to you. Half these dealers live in their own stories."
"Maybe their stories are true," Luin said softly.
They returned to the manor by twilight. Servants lit lamps along the corridor, each flame shivering in a draft. Celin excused herself to her study; Willem led Luin to the guest wing.
"Tomorrow," Willem said, "we trace the underground currents. The pulse moves like blood. We find where it gathers strongest."
"And then?" Luin asked.
Willem's jaw set. "Then we seal it before the Church does. Their way would kill what's near it."
Luin nodded, unease twisting in his stomach. "Celin seems calm."
"She's not," Willem said. "She hides it better than most."
Left alone, Luin wandered the quiet halls. Night made the manor feel too still. He drifted to the west corridor where the air smelled faintly of rain and roses. Paintings watched as he passed.
On an open balcony he paused, looking out over the city. Roofs caught moonlight. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw movement — something shifting beneath the surface, following that steady, distant rhythm.
He closed his eyes. The vibration under his feet was stronger now: not exactly sound, not exactly motion, but a memory of motion, a thing that sat in the bones.
If it's sealed, why does it still breathe? he thought.
Far below the manor, deeper than the Church's catacombs, the air was hot and damp. A ring of people knelt around a pit cut into the stone. At its center, an obsidian slab pulsed faintly like a sleeping animal.
They were followers of the Root. Their faces were hidden behind masks shaped like dead flowers. No one spoke above a whisper.
"The seal weakens," said the tallest, voice trembling with devotion. "The heartbeat comes closer to the surface."
"The Church feels it too," another answered. "They will come."
"Let them," the leader breathed. "We were here first. We were buried with it."
They began a low chanting that braided into the pulse itself. Dust shivered down like gray snow.
Above, in the manor, Luin felt the echo through the floor. Breath left him.
A bell tolled somewhere in the distance, though no church had rung it.
"It's calling again," he whispered.
Sleep didn't come easy that night. Every time he closed his eyes he saw dark water and shapes moving under roots thicker than trees. He woke before dawn, throat dry.
Celin was already at the staircase when he stepped into the corridor, wrapped in a deep-blue cloak. "Couldn't sleep either?" she asked.
"No," he said. "It's louder."
She gave a tired smile. "Then we move faster."
Willem arrived with a small satchel. "Ready?"
Luin nodded.
They left before the servants woke. The city was half-asleep, fog curling through alleys. As they moved deeper into the lower quarters, the pulse beneath them grew steadier — a drumbeat under the cobbles.
Luin thought of the Church's stories: the Heart Beneath the Root, a remnant from an age that had fallen. He wondered whether the Church had sealed it properly, or only locked it away until someone — someone like him — stirred it.
(to be continued…)