Maybe it wasn't really haunted, I had told myself. And if it wasn't, what better place to hide than somewhere no one in Elftown ever went. Even if parts of it were collapsed, it was a stone building. I was sure I could find or make a decent living space. If there were rats, well, I would hunt them. Eat them, if I was starving, and sell their hides to the tannery workers, who would treat them on the sly and sew them together into rough garments for their families. The old Hall was on a little rise; if I could climb up into one of the high points, I could see most of Elftown, at least in our few daily hours of sunlight.

So one night I went to check it out. After midnight, I snuck up to the wall under the cover of darkness and rain, and crept along the wall toward the ruins. I was close to the old building, maybe thirty paces away, when I was hit with a surge of fear so intense, so awful, that it paralyzed me. I pressed back against the wall, hoping to sink into the stone, my mind twisting in terror.

Before me the building seemed a menace, growing taller and more sinister. There was a flash of lightning and I saw it through a hole in the outer wall, in an alcove in an inner wall: a rune. I know now that it was a blood rune; the rune used by Jeamo in his dismemberment rituals and painted by Calmorien. But back then, it just seemed a nameless thing of horror.

I fell back away from the the hall, screaming, and suddenly I could move again and I scrambled to my feet and ran as fast and as far as I could. I was sure then that everyone was right and that the ruins were haunted, even if I had seen no earthbound spirits. I had felt the evil of the place and it had marked me.

That was the night I took refuge in the space between the two buildings where I would later dig my hole under the house. The place where I lived until Nana Romina found me and took me in. The place where Alvar lived until Bolin killed him.

I never tried to sneak into the Hall of Law again. Until now. I still remember the intensity of the fear I felt that night. But I am not the child I was. I am an elf grown, a callous killer who has learned how to turn fear into anger and anger to ferocity. I will enter the Hall of Law tonight. And I will see what is there.

I want to destroy that rune. I don't know if it is somehow directly or indirectly connected to Jeamo's and Calmorien's rituals, but that doesn't matter. It's the same rune. Made of blood, most likely the blood of elven prisoners tortured by the humans before the Hall was destroyed.

Tonight is reconnaissance. But I will come back with a lamp and oil, and burn that rune to ashes. Let the ruins explode, if it comes to that. 

When I was a street rat, I approached the ruins from the side away from the gate, to avoid any chance of being spotted by the humans. I do the same now, but for a different reason. If something goes wrong, I don't want to draw attention to the Lydia and my room there.

As I creep along the wall - step, pause, step, pause - I run my hand against the wet stone. From a distance, the wall seems monolithic. But here, beneath my touch, I feel the smoothness and occasional jutting sharpness of the square stones and the roughness of the old mortar between them. I lower my hand from shoulder level down to my waist, at the height that street rat me ran it against the wall. There's something about the wall, something I want to remember but can't, something lost in the fear that came after.

My finger runs across a jagged edge and I feel the sudden sting of a bleeding cut. I almost laugh aloud. That's what I was trying to remember. There was a sharp bit of protruding rock on which I cut my finger the first time. Now it's happened again. Street rat me sucked on the bleeding finger. I instinctively lift my finger to my mouth, but decide to wipe it on my wet cloak instead.

I dig into my memory. The fear started not long after I cut my finger. Five paces, maybe ten.

I grit my teeth and begin moving forward.