The Unwatched Vigil

The torch in your hand guttered as you pressed yourself into the stone alcove, the smell of wet rope and cold iron thick in the air. Below, in the cistern's gaping mouth, the Master's voice was a low, precise murmur, and his hooded guests—three of them, silent as memory—held the bundle between them. It struggled. A thin, muffled sound, like a child's whimper, cut through the night before the splash. The water swallowed it whole, and then there was only that wet, final sound, and the ripples spreading like a lie.

You knew better than to be here. You knew the shape of danger, and this had its shape. Your boots scraped against the flagstone as you backed away, and the sound echoed down the corridor like a confession.

Then the cold settled on the back of your neck, a presence that had not been there a moment before. It watched you from the dark water's surface, a shimmer of something patient. You did not look. You walked. The gates were sealed until dawn, and you could feel the fortress itself holding its breath.