The Watcher’s Gaze

At that moment, they noticed a ripple of unease among the few cityfolk still outside the gate. Heads turned – not toward them, but farther back, deep in the valley. Two riders were approaching.

“It’s the Watcher!” someone cried, a note of awe and excitement in his voice.

The riders closed the distance quickly and halted just beyond the gate, where they dismounted. One was a soldier of the city, his face lit with barely-contained joy. Elias caught him whispering eagerly to a fellow guard: “He put me up for the night!”

A hush swept through the people gathered nearby as they pressed forward, not for the soldier, but for the man beside him. Some even bowed low to the ground in reverence. But the newcomer’s voice rang out sharp and commanding:
“What are you doing? Stand up, you fools! I am but a man, same as you!”

Bard could scarcely believe his eyes. “Look at his gaze!” he breathed.

The man’s eyes shone brilliant and pure white. He resembled the Warden in some ways, yet his garments were far simpler. He seemed older, too – though he still stood tall, every line of his posture radiating dignity and awe.

“Thank you for coming,” said one who appeared to be the leader of the guard, bowing his head with respect. For a fleeting instant, the Watcher’s sharp gaze flicked toward Elias and the others. Fawks stiffened, struck by the strange, unnerving sense that someone was trying to read him.

“Has the Warden been gone long?” the Watcher asked curtly, already striding for the gate.

“He just left!” the guard leader replied, hurrying at his side and parting the crowd as they entered the city. The commotion surged again – murmurs, shifting feet, the air electric with speculation. The two men’s voices carried on, indistinct, as they disappeared deeper into the streets.

The people who had gathered spilled forward behind them, whispering among themselves. Speculations buzzed like flies in the air:

“He’s here to release the White Princess,” some guessed.

“Aye,” others agreed. “The princess in chains – her power could undo the raising of the shades in an instant!”

“Are they speaking about Selora?” Cecile asked, astonished, turning toward an old woman beside her.

At the sound of that name, Fawks felt a strange resonance stir inside him – like a hidden current of air tugging him toward the heart of the city. A soft voice brushed his ears, faint, feminine, almost too delicate to catch: “Help me…”

“Dad…” he whispered.

“Aye, child,” the old woman told Cecile gravely. “But Selora is not one to be tampered with.”

“What is it?” Elias asked, leaning toward Fawks.

“Oh, I’ve heard of her!” Bard exclaimed.

“Isn’t that just a fairytale?” Cecile asked, still addressing the old woman.

“I think… I heard something,” Fawks admitted hesitantly.

“No, child. She is real,” the woman answered.

“Nonsense!” a passerby barked. “That’s but a fable!”

And indeed, most nearby dismissed the talk as children’s lore. “A myth!” another scoffed. Soon the crowd scattered, returning to their work. When Cecile turned back, the old woman was gone.

“What did you hear?” Elias pressed, bending close to Fawks.

“I… I’m not sure.” His voice was unsteady, his eyes clouded with doubt.

“Do you hear it now?” Elias asked.

“No.”

“What’s there to hear?” Bard scoffed. “Nothing but noise, all this time!”

“Well, it was something,” Fawks muttered, still unsure, yet unable to shake it.

“Of course it was,” Cecile soothed, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Well then… it’s afternoon already,” Bard said after a long pause. “I say we make for our camp in the Frostshore Wilds. We can cover a great distance across this flat Riesental Valley—this vast sea before Orrendale – before nightfall.”

“Oh… not through Teranbrath Road?” Elias asked in surprise.

“No. We’ll take the pass through the Katon Mounts.”

“We won’t stop again at Lone Haven?”

“I’m afraid not. We’ll have to meet Fenric Thale another time. We need to bring what we’ve gathered back to camp. And since we’re already here, the Katon Mounts pass is the fastest way.”

Bard pulled out a small map he kept with him. Fawks’s eyes lit wide with fascination as Bard offered explanations, answering question after question about the world of the Common Ground. Then they set off.

The journey was monotonous at first. To their right stretched the mountain range; far off to the left, another rose in jagged heights. Between those, all the eye could see was green – grass, crops, sprawling fields that seemed endless.

Elias watched the merry stride of his son walking ahead and wondered at himself: how had he not seen it from the very start? Perhaps, he thought, some part of him had simply refused to accept that in his tragic fate, he had dragged another down with him – his own child.

But now, looking again upon this world, it no longer felt so foreign. It was beginning to take root inside him.

“That city–” the boy turned suddenly. “The one you started building… it looked a lot like my drawing. Do you remember my drawing?”

Memory returned to Elias – just a fleeting glimpse he’d caught of it once, shown from the backseat by his little son, before it fell down inside the car and was lost from his sight – about as quickly as his own attempt at a city had collapsed. Even then it had struck him as eerily close to the image in his own mind. And yet, he had forgotten afterwards.

“Yeah…” he said softly, smiling. His gaze lingered on the boy’s tail, and in that moment he remembered the plush toy –Mr. Fox– that his son always carried, always left by his side in the car. The toy that filled countless drawings, some of the earliest of which had his name misspelled. One still pinned above the child’s desk had read: Mr. Fawks.

It had all been there, all along. And Elias simply hadn’t seen it.

“You gave me the impression you’d been here a long while already,” Elias said, giving him a playful shake.

“Yeah, I’d been out exploring plenty!” Fawks grinned. “What surprised me was that when I remembered to come back – you were still in the same place!”

“How much time had passed?”

“Not a little!”

“You never told us!” Cecile chimed in.
“Where did you find all those azure drael?”

“Yeah,” Bard agreed, clearly burning with the same question.

Father and son exchanged a glance, then burst out laughing.

“What?” Cecile demanded, smiling despite herself.

“Well,” Elias said merrily, “let’s just say there’s a tall thin island in a bay where none had been before… and you might stumble on a few drael beneath a scorched rocky dome.”

“Haha! Once Bard shows us his map again, I’ll point it out,” Fawks added with a sly grin.

The group pressed on in the same direction for hours. When the last of the suns sank and darkness spread across the valley, they made camp on a low rise at the foot of the mountains, where they lit a fire and lay down to sleep.

That night, though, was anything but restful for Fawks. He dreamed – vivid, unsettling.

He was in a stone cell, barefoot, the damp chill gnawing at his bones. Shadows blurred the walls; the place seemed starved of light.

“Hellooo!” he called, his voice echoing again and again down a dark corridor beyond a barred wooden door.

“Hello…” A soft, sweet, melodic voice answered behind him, and with it a faint glow stirred.

He turned. At the far end of the cell, near a narrow window, stood a girl about his age –perhaps a little older– clad in plain white clothes. Around her wrists and bare ankles gleamed a delicate silver chain, thin as thread, binding her. It trailed out through the barred window, vanishing into the night.

Her voice came again, tender, pleading:
“I have been bound here. Please – don’t leave me. Rescue me.”

Fawks jolted awake, trembling, breath shallow. A faint echo still clung to his ears, and on his cheek he felt the trace of a breeze, soft as silk.