Chapter 17 — To the Caller

They bound me tighter, ropes biting deep, and dragged me from the camp before dawn. The red-cloaked representative rode ahead, escorts close behind. The bandit leader handed me over without ceremony. Payment must have changed hands—I didn't see it, but I felt it in the way the camp watched me go. Relief in some faces. Resentment in others.

Merlin came too, rope looped to a saddle, stumbling at my side. He was still weak, still not whole, but when a guard drifted too near he let out a rumble low in his chest, steady and dangerous. The men gave him distance, muttering, eyes flicking away whenever his gaze met theirs.

We marched for hours through thinning forest, the land rising into ridges of black stone. At last we came to a structure carved into the cliff itself. Vast arches cut from living rock, doorways tall as towers, smoke curling from vents. The air hummed faintly, as if the place itself breathed.

Inside, the Caller waited.

He was not grand—plain robe of ash-grey, hands bare, head shaved—but power hung on him like heat before a storm. His eyes caught me and weighed me like coin on a scale.

The representative bowed low. "The stranger, my lord. As promised."

The Caller's gaze sharpened. His mouth curled. "So soon. I thought I would scour half the land to find you. Yet here you are."

Merlin growled, chest flickering with pale light. The glow built, stronger this time, his frame swelling, spectral mist curling at his paws. He stepped between me and the Caller, jaws bared.

"Interesting," the Caller murmured. "Not a wolf. Not a beast I know. But bound to you, and that makes it useful. As are you."

He raised one hand. A word snapped the air like a whip.

Merlin yelped, light cut off in an instant. He collapsed, twitching, chest heaving in shallow gasps.

Something in me broke. Rage, fear, desperation—all at once, hot in my chest. My vision blurred, then cleared into something else. The world bent. Threads of light and shadow ran through the floor, walls, ceiling, binding everything into a hidden geometry. A lattice humming with power, and at its center stood the Caller.

I pulled.

Stone buckled upward, a wall tearing from the floor. Torches spat smoke, shadows lengthened. The ropes on my wrists unraveled, knots coming apart like rotten twine. The Caller's escorts staggered, shouting.

The Caller's eyes widened—and then he smiled. "Yes. Good. Very good."

But I wasn't staying.

I hauled Merlin across my shoulders, his body heavy and limp, and forced my legs to move. The threads guided me, glowing paths through the stone. I collapsed arches, split walls, sealed corridors behind us. Each pull was instinct, frantic, but it worked.

The Caller's laughter followed, echoing down the tunnels. "Run, stranger! Run far! The world itself will bring you back to me."

We burst into the outer halls, into cold air stinking of smoke. I stumbled down a side passage, Merlin's weight dragging me sideways, heart pounding with terror and fury. Then, all at once, the Sight flickered—then vanished. The glowing lattice was gone. The world was just stone again.

I stopped, gasping. The power was gone. I was blind again, ordinary, rope-burned, staggering under the weight of my dog.

Merlin twitched against me, still breathing, still alive. That was enough.

— Seventh day, escaping from the Caller's halls —

We pressed on into the night, away from the Caller, away from the fortress, into the wild unknown.