Chapter 18: Chapter 17: Carved Wood

Flynn slipped away from the common hall as the others settled into their planning discussion, their voices a low murmur of concern and strategy behind him. He needed air—or at least the illusion of it that came from being alone with his thoughts. The corridors of the sanctum felt too close tonight, weighted with the invisible threads of the boundary link and heavy with the knowledge of what lay ahead.

His feet carried him automatically to his sleeping alcove, where moonlight slanted through the narrow window and painted silver squares across the stone floor. From beneath his bedroll, he pulled out a small leather pouch—worn smooth by years of handling—and settled cross-legged on the stone platform.

The wooden figures spilt into his palm like old friends: a wolf mid-leap, a sparrow with outstretched wings, a bear rearing on its hind legs. Each one bore the marks of countless hours spent carving, smoothing, and perfecting tiny details that most people would never notice. The wolf's individual whiskers. The delicate barbs on each sparrow feather. The careful texture of the bear's fur.

Flynn picked up the sparrow first, running his thumb along its wing. This had been his third attempt at capturing flight—the first two had ended up as kindling when his eight-year-old hands couldn't manage the delicate work. But his father had been patient, showing him again and again how to let the knife follow the grain of the wood, how to see the bird already sleeping inside the block of pine.

"Every piece of wood has something waiting inside it," Mal had said, his rough hands guiding Flynn's smaller ones. "Our job isn't to force our will on it—it's to listen to what it wants to become."

The memory was so vivid Flynn could smell the wood shavings that had always dusted his father's clothing, could hear the soft scrape of steel on wood that had been the soundtrack to so many evenings in their cramped attic room. Mal would return from jobs with pockets full of liberated trinkets and stories, but the nights Flynn treasured most were the quiet ones—just the two of them carving by candlelight while rain drummed against the single window.

His father had been teaching him more than woodcraft, Flynn understood now. Every careful cut, every patient correction when Flynn's knife slipped, every gentle reminder to work with the wood rather than against it—it had all been preparation for a life spent moving through shadows, reading the hidden currents that ran beneath the surface of things.

"Patience, little shadow," Mal would say when Flynn grew frustrated with a particularly stubborn piece. "The wood will tell you when it's ready. Force it, and you'll only break what you're trying to create."

Flynn set down the sparrow and picked up the wolf. This one had been carved during the long, terrible months after his father's death, when fifteen-year-old Flynn had haunted the docks and alleys of Ravencliff like an actual ghost. His hands had moved almost without conscious direction, finding comfort in the familiar motions even as his heart felt carved hollow.

The wolf's expression was fierce, protective—the way Flynn had imagined his father in those final moments on the ship's deck. Mal had known he wouldn't make it off that vessel alive, had chosen his son's future over his own survival. That last salute from the deck, barely visible in the darkness, had been both goodbye and benediction.

"Take care of the small ones, Flynn," he had said before that final job. "The world's got enough people looking out for the powerful. Someone needs to watch over those who can't protect themselves."

The irony wasn't lost on Flynn that he'd found his way to another group dedicated to protecting the vulnerable. The Sentinels weren't quite the same as his father's work—they watched over storm-bearers rather than exploited children—but the heart of it was the same. Find those in danger. Keep them safe. Stand between them and the darkness that would consume them.

Like Nira.

Flynn's hands stilled on the wolf's carved fur. He'd been too young then, too new to the Sentinels, to understand the full weight of what they were facing. Nira had been like a sister to him in those early days, teaching him the layout of the sanctum, showing him which passages stayed warmest in winter, laughing at his terrible attempts to cook anything more complex than trail rations.

He'd seen the signs, toward the end. The way her laughter had grown sharper, more brittle. How she'd started spending hours staring at her hands, watching sparks dance between her fingers with an expression that was part wonder, part hunger. The moments when she'd look at him like she didn't quite recognise who he was.

But Flynn had dismissed those signs, just as he'd later dismiss similar changes he'd seen in other bearers who passed through the sanctum. He'd wanted to believe that friendship could anchor anyone, that enough loyalty and laughter could hold back the darkness pressing at the edges of every storm-bearer's soul.

The night Nira fell, Flynn had been out on a scouting mission. He'd returned to find Riven sitting alone by the fire, methodically cleaning blood from his blade with the expression of a man who'd just cut out his own heart. Thalia had told him the facts—sixteen villagers dead, Nira corrupted beyond saving, no choice left but the mercy of steel—but she hadn't been able to explain the particular weight of Riven's grief, or why the man had barely spoken for weeks afterwards.

Flynn understood now. Knowing that someone's corruption was inevitable didn't make killing them any easier. Love and duty warred in the human heart, and duty won battles while love counted the cost.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He picked up the bear, the largest of his carved figures. This one was more recent, worked during the restless nights after they'd brought Kaela to the sanctum. Something about her reminded him of Nira—the way she carried her guilt like a stone in her chest, the careful distance she tried to maintain from anything that might anchor her to hope.

But there were differences, too. Nira had craved her power even as it corrupted her; Kaela feared hers. Nira had pulled people close and then pushed them away in cycles of manipulation and rage; Kaela simply tried to stay distant from the start, as if she could protect others by refusing to let them care about her.

The boundary link changed that calculation. Now her fate was literally tied to theirs, her survival bound up with their own life force. Flynn could feel it even now—a subtle warmth in his chest that pulsed in rhythm with something larger than his own heartbeat. It should have been terrifying, having his life tangled up with someone else's power, but instead it felt... right. Like stepping into a role he'd been preparing for without knowing it.

"The wood will tell you when it's ready," his father's voice whispered in his memory.

Maybe this was what readiness felt like—not the absence of fear, but the presence of something stronger than fear. Purpose, perhaps. Or simply the bone-deep knowledge that some things were worth the risk.

Flynn set the bear aside and reached for his carving knife, then pulled a fresh piece of wood from his pouch. Pine, like all the others, is soft enough to work easily but strong enough to hold fine detail. He'd been saving this piece for weeks, waiting for the right inspiration.

Now, sitting in the moonlight with Kaela's compass pointing steadily northeast and the boundary threads humming softly in his chest, he knew what he wanted to carve.

The knife moved almost of its own accord, following lines he could see in his mind's eye. Not a wolf or bear or sparrow this time, but something else. Something that could fly but chose to perch, that could disappear into shadows but preferred to stay visible, watching over the things it loved.

An owl. Wide eyes, alert and protective. Wings folded close to its body, ready to spread at a moment's notice but content for now to simply observe. The kind of creature that saw clearly in the darkness and made its home in the spaces between.

"Every piece of wood has something waiting inside it."

As Flynn worked, careful shavings curling away from the blade, he found himself thinking about tomorrow night's journey. Following the compass into unknown territory, with Hunters growing more coordinated by the day and something actively hunting Kaela specifically. Any sane person would be terrified.

But Flynn had spent his childhood learning to move through shadows, and his adolescence discovering that the most dangerous places often held the most vulnerable people. If Kaela needed to follow that compass to find answers, then his job was to make sure she survived long enough to get them.

The owl's form emerged slowly from the wood, feature by careful feature. Flynn added individual feathers to the wings, texture to the talons, and a slight tilt to the head that suggested alertness without alarm. This wasn't a creature caught by surprise—this was something that had chosen its perch deliberately, settling in for a long watch.

By the time he finished, the moon had shifted across the window, and the sounds from the common hall had died away to nothing. The others had probably gone to their own sleeping alcoves hours ago, leaving him alone with his memories and his carving.

Flynn held up the completed owl, examining it in the silver light. It was good work—perhaps the best he'd ever done. The proportions were perfect, the details crisp and clean. More importantly, it felt right in his hands, solid and comforting in the way his father's carvings had always been.

He thought about giving it to Kaela before they left. Not as a romantic gesture—he wasn't quite ready to name what he felt for her, and she certainly wasn't ready to hear it—but as a reminder that she wouldn't be facing the darkness alone. That someone would be watching over her, keeping vigil in the shadows.

But as Flynn turned the owl over in his palm, he realised it wasn't meant for Kaela. This one was for him—a promise to himself, carved in wood and smoothed by patient hands. A reminder of the lessons his father had taught him about protection and purpose, about finding the strength to stand between the vulnerable and the darkness that would consume them.

"Take care of the small ones, Flynn."

Kaela might be a storm-bearer with power enough to level cities, but she was still small in the ways that mattered most. Still frightened, still grieving, still trying to figure out who she was supposed to be in a world that had already decided she was dangerous.

Flynn slipped the owl into his pouch alongside the other carvings, then stretched out on his bedroll with his hands behind his head. Through the window, he could see stars wheeling overhead—the same stars his father had once pointed out during their nights on Ravencliff's rooftops, teaching him to navigate by more than just shadow and instinct.

Tomorrow night, he would follow Kaela into whatever waited for them in the northeast. He would scout ahead and watch the flanks and make sure nothing approached unseen. He would be her eyes and ears in the darkness, her early warning against danger.

And if the time came—if corruption took her despite their best efforts, if the Hunters overwhelmed their defences, if the compass led them into a trap from which there was no escape—Flynn would do what duty demanded. Not because he wanted to, but because some things were more important than what any individual wanted.

His father had understood that, standing on the deck of that ship with guards closing in around him. Had chosen the larger good over his own survival, the future over the present.

Flynn closed his eyes and let his breathing slow, the weight of the carved owl a comfort against his ribs. In a few hours, he would begin preparing for the journey—checking his gear, scouting the eastern approaches, making sure their path was as clear as possible.

But for now, in the quiet darkness of his alcove, he simply held his father's lessons close and tried not to think about how many ways tomorrow could go wrong.

The wood would tell him when it was ready. The darkness would reveal what it chose to reveal.

And Flynn would be there, watching from the shadows, ready to step forward when the time came.

"Little shadow," he could almost hear his father whisper. "Take care of the small ones."

Always, Da, Flynn promised the empty air. Always.