This story is part of the Wanderer series.
“Blimey.”
Lev stopped at the tiles’ edge. Chiyoko halted even further behind, staying where the path just about leveled out with this clearing. She gazed at the courtyard with subtle alarm, lips slightly parting as she slowly drew in a breath, shoulders rising.
“Some kind of ritual ground, I reckon?”
Chiyoko stayed frozen as Lev looked about. Bringing a hand up to his chin and supporting his elbow with the other arm, he slightly tilted his head here and there as he tried to puzzle out a pattern from the courtyard’s edge. So transfixed were the two mages that they disregarded the castle structures that flanked the three other sides of the square court. More of the mountain lied beyond, the bricked walls embedded into them. Being mostly featureless like the rest of the structures below, save for superficial crenellations at the tops of these walls, they blended in with the terrain. Harsh shadows hung under the lips of the battlements from the pinpoint sun above. Unrestricted, it parched the color of the rock all around. Despite the vast open space, no breeze persisted in this stale, thin air. A dead atmosphere to accompany this eerily open space.
Lev raised his head, removing his chin from his fingers to glance backwards. He found his companion still on the path, halfway hidden behind the ledge.
“Chee-yo, dear?”
She blinked. Hearing Lev call her, she briefly glanced at him, then finally surfaced with haste, marching up to his side. However, she did not hold her gaze for long, her eyes returning to the courtyard, flickering with anticipation. By her sides, her hands inadvertently clenched into fists.
“Well, I don’t see any way around it,” Lev concluded, rubbing his chin as he pored over the space again. “It doesn’t appear to be a seal. Too many broken bits along its paths.”
Chiyoko leaned forward without taking a step. “I want to look at it closer.”
Lev flicked his face to her. “Do you believe there is a seal?”
“No. I don’t know. I know nothing about them. I just want to look.”
She looked up, staring at him straight on.
“Do you think it’s safe?”
Lev gave the courtyard one more gaze, realizing he had to make a decisive call. “Nothing jumps out at me… But exercise caution, my dear.”
Chiyoko stood still, holding her stare. She observed his face, gauging his confidence. When she broke away, she stepped, not forward into the tiled yard, but to the side, following the perimeter. She paced around the edge a few steps, staring in, before she finally slowed down, took a measured breath, and began to wander inwards. Lev followed behind a few steps, having stayed put at first before growing curious of what detail she might be cluing into.
In a gradual, curving path, the two of them ventured further. Lev kept his eyes on the ground, seeing if he could find any sort of smaller patterns within the larger whole. Chiyoko’s, meanwhile, remained vaguely forward, but distant at the same time. She was not navigating the square with her eyes, but rather her feet. Following by feel through this flat plane. Approaching closer to the center, but eventually curving off, following a trajectory parallel to the left edge of the courtyard. Her steps became sluggish, as if something was holding her back, weighing her down.
Lev appeared to notice something was off as well, knitting his brows and drawing his eyes away from the ground. Scanning around, he saw nothing new. A desolate courtyard, far too large to contain nothing. Far too large to contain no one. Everything about the space screamed purpose. A purpose of congregation, for some reason, perhaps some thing that was no longer there. A purpose now abandoned, like the castle and domiciles below.
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