Page 18 of Dragon’s Ending

We climbed in relative silence after that, heading for the ruins that rose unevenly from the hilltop.

At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about them. They were merely all that remained of a castle, their most interesting feature a tower jutting unsteadily but defiantly upwards. I slowed slightly as we approached, taking it in. One of the inner walls of what appeared to be a large courtyard had scorch marks that looked fairly recent. Over the years, stones had been left where they’d tumbled from crumbling walls and now lay on short grass that was liberally sprinkled with rabbit droppings. That explained why it was so neatly cropped.

But I couldn’t see anything that was worth bringing me away from my work. Although… I stood for a moment in the sun, face tilted up as I breathed in the fresh air. Dominic was infuriating, but I couldn’t completely regret coming out here.

He was still moving, and biting down my annoyance at the fact he just expected me to follow him, I trailed him through a gap in what must once have been an inner wall.

“Here,” Dominic said, from somewhere to my right.

When I first saw them, I thought they were random damage. A series of deep grooves cut into the stone—irregular, intersecting, and not following any of the natural lines of the masonry.

But the marks were too deep to have been made by bored teenagers carving their initials into the stone. Not to mention, these weren’t initials.

I reached out, then paused, my hand hovering just short of the surface. Something about them… I wasn’t sure I should touch them. They could be important.

But it was just as important to understand them, so I pressed my fingers lightly into one. It was cool, and smooth in a way that felt somehow organic. Not the result of a stonemason finessing their work for hours, but something that hadn’t needed smoothing. It felt familiar. Like the scores made by dragon claws.

I drew my hand away and stepped back to take in the wider section. There, and there again. Repeating, so definitely not random.

“This isn’t structural,” I said, more to myself than to Dominic.

“No.”

I glanced over at him. He was watching me, not the wall.

“This wall’s different from the rest of it,” he added after a moment.

I looked back at the stone. The outer wall—the one that had collapsed—was rough, but consistent with all the other walls. This wasn’t. It had smaller stones, more unevenly laid. It was much older. And it looked almost as if the newer wall had been built to shelter it.

“From before the castle,” I said slowly.

Dominic shrugged, as if it didn’t particularly matter one way or the other.

I stepped closer again, studying the marks with renewed focus. They weren’t writing in any alphabet I recognised, and they were too unevenly spaced to be decoration. But they weren’t meaningless. Of that I was sure.

I could feel something, just out of reach. Like when something’s lurking at the edge of vision, but can’t be brought into focus. That was what I felt about this. I should know it. Part of me did.

I breathed out slowly. And tried to pretend I wasn’t aware of Dominic still watching me.

Chapter Nine

DOMINIC

Berstow had gone very still. He was absolutely focused on the markings, reaching out a hand before pausing as if he shouldn’t touch them. Then, presumably, he realised that they’d been exposed to the elements for who knew how many years already, and traced one of the long slashes with his fingers. Which were nice fingers. Just right for wrapping around that pen of his. Or something else.

He was communing with the wall, no longer aware of my presence, so I took myself off to what used to be the front gate of the castle and stared down the track that led to the river below. I wasn’t used to being ignored. But wasn’t this why I’d brought him up here, to show him the markings?

I scuffed my boot against a fallen stone as I considered it. Not really. I didn’t do that kind of thing. I wasn’t interested in helping his research—I’d just wanted… something. Some kind of reaction out of him other than that annoying calm as if I wasn’t worth even noticing. Instead, I'd ended up competing with a thousand-year-old wall for his attention. And losing.

The minutes passed, and there was still no sign of Berstow, who was doubtless taking fifty million photos for his records. For a moment, I considered heading down to the river. But then I realised I’d miss walking back to the house with him and possibly getting confirmation on why he was here.

So I scrubbed a hand impatiently through my hair and sat down on the largest block of stone that had tumbled from a wall at some point. The sun was warm, the birds calling overhead, and unbidden, I remembered another summer’s day, when the castle was more whole.

A rug on uneven grass. The smell of egg mayonnaise, of pastry flaking apart in my hands. My mother’s voice, warm and close, telling a story about a princess, a knight, and a unicorn.

“Unicorns aren’t real,” I’d said, with all the certainty of a child.

She’d laughed softly, leaning in to press a kiss to my hair.