Silas stopped fifty meters out.
Alistair didn't realize it immediately. The Absence meant Silas existed at the periphery of awareness even when you were watching for him, right until something changed.
The stones, however, gave no new marker. The signal system that had guided them for two days went quiet, and the quiet itself was loud enough.
Due noticed first. He moved beside Alistair without speaking and tilted his head toward the structure ahead of them.
It was unremarkable. Low stone walls, a flat timber roof patched in three places, the kind of building that existed in disputed territory because it had been useful once and nobody had bothered tearing it down.
No markings, no visible activity. A single window on the eastern face, narrow enough that a man would have to turn sideways to fit through.
The ground sloped east. The path they had been following curved around the structure's northern side and continued toward a ridgeline.
