The door was stiff to open, and he had to lean into it before it stuttered across the stone floor, revealing a single, shadowed room. Circles of dirty light hung in a ring around him, while at the apex of the concave ceiling, the delicate pyramid of leaded glass that he remembered from his childhood had long since been smashed, leaving black twists of lead scratching at the sky. The circular room was ringed with long concentric steps, and that was where they were kept.
‘I put mine on the highest platform I could.’ Aldasair took a breath, smelling damp and rotten leaves. ‘So they could see the moon at night.’
In his memory, the steps were polished stone, shining and clean. Now they were thick with mould and moss, dead leaves and even, he realised, the tiny skeletal remains of various small animals. They must have crept in through the broken skylight, seeking food and shelter, and then found they were unable to get out. It wasn’t a reassuring thought.
His eyes adjusting to the gloom, Aldasair walked over to one of the steps. There were tiny mounds all over them, little pockets of shadow – it was almost possible to see what they had been, once, if you squinted.
He had just lifted his hand, daring himself to pick one of them up, when a footfall behind him caused his heart to leap into his throat. He spun round to see a figure blocking out the weak daylight coming in the door.
‘Sorry!’ Bern the Younger held up his hands. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’
Aldasair clenched his fists at his sides. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was curious. Not always my most useful trait, my father says, but there you go.’ He stepped into the room fully, his head turning to try and take in everything at once. ‘What is this place?’
‘Did you follow me up the hill?’
Bern cleared his throat. His wild yellow hair had been tied back in a tail, and despite the gloom, Aldasair could clearly see the faint blush that crept across his cheeks. ‘You could say that. I mean, you could say that because it would be true. I saw you on the far side of the gardens, and you had such a look on your face—’
‘I didn’t hear you. I should have heard you coming.’
Bern the Younger grinned. It was such an incongruous expression in this broken, ancient place that Aldasair found he had to look away.
‘I’m a hunter. It’s my job to move quietly.’
‘Are you saying you were hunting me?’
‘By the stones, no!’ Bern raised his hands again, looking genuinely alarmed. ‘I am not good at this. Speaking to you people, I mean. I was curious, Aldasair. I didn’t know what could be up this hill, that you were so determined to reach. Forgive me.’ When Aldasair didn’t answer, Bern nodded around at the steps. ‘So, what is this place?’
‘We called it the Hill of Souls.’ Outside, the day brightened, filling the room with a soft glow. Dust danced in the shaft of light from the hole in the roof. ‘It was—’ Aldasair stopped. ‘It’s difficult to remember the words for these things, sometimes. It was something we did every season, and it was important.’
‘A tradition,’ said Bern. ‘We have many of those in Finneral. Mostly, I’ll be honest with you, to do with stones. Or drinking.’
‘A tradition. Yes, that’s what it was.’ Aldasair closed his eyes, trying to remember. ‘The youngest of us, the children. Those who were no more than fifty or sixty years old—’ Bern made an odd noise, which Aldasair ignored. ‘They would make charms in the shapes of the war-beasts, to honour them. Those who had fallen, their spirits returning to Ygseril. And then we would have a ceremony, with lights, and special food, and place them on the top of the Hill of Souls, so they could look from Ygseril’s branches and see the lights burning here, and know they weren’t forgotten. That they would never be forgotten.’ Aldasair opened his eyes, his head spinning with the memories; he could taste the soul-cakes, could smell the fresh clay. It had all been yesterday, hadn’t it?
‘A festival day for your children.’ Bern looked serious, one hand tugging at the stones in his beard.
‘Yes,’ Aldasair went back to the steps, smiling, ‘when there were no spaces left for the charms, we would take them back and we would bury them somewhere so that they could return to Ygseril’s roots. The place had to be secret.’ Reaching out, he brushed away a clump of old leaves, revealing a small, misshapen lump of clay. ‘There must be thousands of them, buried all over Ebora.’
‘You have been doing this a long time?’
‘For as long as anyone remembers.’ Aldasair touched the twisted piece of clay. It crumbled under his finger, and his stomach turned over. ‘Not any more, though, of course. Not for – not for a very long time.’
Bern joined him, and began sweeping away the debris with the side of one large hand, revealing more of the charms. Here was the snaking shape of a dragon, its horned head turned inwards to rest on its own flank; here was a great fox, its long snout chipped at the end; a griffin, one of its wings in pieces next to it. Others had not survived so well; damp had softened their edges and paint had flaked away, leaving suggestions of shapes, half-seen ghosts.
‘Your children made these?’
‘Yes, the youngest ones. I looked forward to it each season. We all did. Talking about which war-beast we would honour, and why. Some honoured the same war-beast every season, others made figures of those who had won the most battles, attained the most glory. Some of us just liked certain shapes.’ He paused. It was difficult to talk this much at once. ‘I remember the last time I came here. I was nearly too old to be included, and the first instances of the crimson flux had started. I felt like it was the end of something, that day. I didn’t realise it was the end of everything.’
Aldasair stopped, his face hot. He had said too much. Bern was looking thoughtfully at the charms, his green eyes serious for once, and then he turned to look at Aldasair.
‘It’s not the end. Things are changing already, don’t you see?’ One corner of his mouth lifted in a faintly bitter smile. ‘You rarely see people working together as they are now, and stone of my heart, I think that means something. All of this,’ he gestured at the room with its animal corpses and dead leaves, ‘it can be what it was, again. There will be more Eboran children. We should tidy this up, so it is ready for them.’
Despite himself, Aldasair found himself smiling. ‘The Hill of Souls is just a memory, and there are so many other things that need mending. But I appreciate the thought.’
Bern sighed. ‘There is a lot of sadness here.’ The look he gave Aldasair was so frank he had to turn away. ‘All of you, so sad. But change is coming, my friend, I can feel it in the stone.’
Outside, the wind picked up, sweeping into the room and dancing dried leaves around their feet. Aldasair thought of the tarla cards and how they had spoken to him with words that had claimed to know the future – and how he no longer had time to listen to them.