Anna von Wessen by Mae Ronan

he want her resting place so near as to be often visible to him. If he wished to visit her, then he wished to walk many miles to do so, so that he might better prepare himself along the way. Therefore he had the entire mausoleum moved, to a spot in the heart of the surrounding forest, where there should be no chance at all of his seeing it, if he did not expressly desire to do so. Granted, he left Drelho not long after all this precaution had been taken in the first place; but that is another matter.
    Now, certainly Greyson would rather have been able to shift to the spot; but of course he did not know exactly where it lay, and though he shifted many times through the forest in search of it, he found eventually that this method was only making the thing more difficult. So he transposed himself back to the forest-line, and began on his way through the trees, his eyes ever peeled for the building he sought.
    In this way he finally found it, lying some fifteen miles into the dense Southern forest. That he approached it was obvious enough; for it seemed that the trees within a half-mile radius had been cleared away, to reveal a spot of slightly raised ground, that stood like a pedestal in the midst of the dark wood. Greyson ascended the little hill, his boots crunching over dead leaves and twigs, till the mausoleum came in sight.
    He halted some thirty yards from the place, and simply looked upon it for a long while. There were several soft moonbeams that fell down between the high overhead branches, sifting through the darkness like weak rays of sun through deep water. They illumined the great structure like a grey halo, lighting up intermittent patches of thick ivy and vine, which clung to walls, roof and door as would a hungry leech.
    This building was very different from all those low ramshackle ones which surrounded the castle. It was clear that this one had been tended, maintained, and seen to frequently by a careful hand, no doubt by the orders of Ephram himself. The walls did not cave, the roof did not slump, and not a stone dared to crumble. The frozen ivy held up the ancient foundation like a strong arm, fibrous and tenacious enough, no doubt, to wring one’s neck like the very most formidable python.
    Greyson stepped cautiously towards the wide doorway, almost as if the mere act of drawing nigh to the place could possibly warrant mortal punishment. He mounted the long, thick steps, and took them one by one, till twenty paces later, he had reached the deep portico. Here there were four cylindrical pillars, separated each by approximately thirty feet. In the cavernous slots betwixt the first and second, and the third and fourth pillars, there was only a wall of stone, carved intricately with the seal of the Lumaria. This seal depicted an immense raven with wings extended, swathed in the imperial robe, and capped with the crown of the sovereigns. Between the folds of the robe, and across the raven’s feathered chest, there was branded a great “L.”
    Betwixt the second and third pillars, however, there lay a shadowed, empty space. Greyson approached this place slowly, so very slowly that if he had slackened his place yet a fraction more, he would not have been moving at all. It is one of the many gifts of the Lumaria, you see, to fly when one should fly, and to crawl when one should crawl – and to understand always which speed one should employ.
    He took the last, and the broadest of his strides thus far, into the crypt – and of course it was black as the Pit. Still he could see all around him, but desiring to view the place bathed in light, he extracted the matches from his pocket which he had brought for just such a purpose. He went to a long-armed torch nearby, and lit the candle it held. Then he stepped back, and surveyed the crypt afresh, with the new light from the torch glittering in his eyes.
    The chamber was a vast one. From the left-hand wall to the right, it must have been at least a five-hundred-yard