The main chapel was the most important and sacred part of a church building. But few people came here under normal circumstances, and even fewer did once autumn arrived.
Like other buildings of its kind, it had been designed with great expanses of stained glass in place of solid walls. The result was a dramatic loss of insulation.
North of Solace Port, unless they lit plenty of braziers, the cold would soon drive away even the most devout worshippers.
Even in the south, damp cold was miserable. Besides, almost no worshippers came to make inquiries or go on pilgrimages. The dozen or so people who attended morning prayers could simply squeeze into the Prayer Room, so plans to use the main chapel had been shelved.
On top of that, there were no glaziers anywhere in the Priyell Domain. Repairs were postponed again and again until they sank to the bottom of the work list, where no one gave them a second thought.
The monks did a little cleaning, swept the floor, and tidied away the scattered remains of books. Then they nailed the main doors shut again and locked the small door connecting to the side building.
They had an instinctive fear of the place. During their night patrols, they would unconsciously hurry past, unwilling to linger. Some even made a point of looking away and avoided discussing it, as though they were afraid of waking something they couldn't describe.
Wariness was a strange thing. Even without any concrete evidence, it could awaken a survival instinct and drive people to make decisions that seemed irrational, yet were right.
And yet Kraft had returned here, to the place where he had last felt that thing.
Don't ask how he got in. He was the abbot and had all the monastery's keys.