Every night, when the gate closes, Rook climbs to the Watch Tower and keeps the dark company until dawn.
It begins at dusk. Rook takes a taper from the Great Hall hearth and walks the entire wall circuit — gate to Watch Tower to Pigeon Tower and back — lighting all forty-seven torches by hand. Rain, snow, gale: the Lighting is never delegated and never skipped. Travelers who time their arrival to watch it from the courtyard say the fortress seems to wake up torch by torch.
"Light is a promise. You don't send someone else to make your promises."
— Rook (character voice)
Then the Watch itself: Rook motionless on the Watch Tower parapet, eyes like banked coals, listening to the night — the sea below, the pines, the occasional owl with strong opinions. This is when Rook does the guardian's real work: remembering. Every name on the Naming Stones. Every traveler who ever needed the Quiet Corner. Every dawn that ever came.
Partly vigilance — the Grey Road has bandits, and storms wreck ships on the cliff. Mostly, though, it's simpler: someone should be awake. Rook believes every dark place is less dark if one steady light is watching over it. That's the whole philosophy, and honestly, it's hard to argue with.
The Watch ends the way it began — with light, this time unasked-for. Rook watches the sunrise from the Quiet Corner, then sleeps through the morning in the gatehouse, "loud enough," the staff joke, "to keep the stones awake in turn." By noon, the gate is open and Rook is greeting travelers like the night never happened.
