“What?”
She watched him wrestle with the mess of three blankets he had bundled around his shoulders. Eventually, she said: “Witches bless women. They deem them good. Three witches blessed, hrrn, they blessed my mother, yesss, before she had me. They blessed me. Hrrn. It means the world gives to me. Changes me. Makes me hard. Resistant.”
Yu actually knew that. Not the frost-part, but the part about the blessing in general. He had heard of a Witch-Blessed tairan woman living in Artellem, one of the northernmost settlements. Even the most ignorant knew one thing about her: she was the largest, most grotesquely fat person in the known world. Yu had no idea whether and how that related to her so-called blessing, though. For Harrow, however, her blessing appeared to be a tangible advantage.
“Does that mean witches won’t attack us? On the trip, I mean.” Yu gave up on the blankets. It was too cold to sit any longer, so he pushed dignity aside and collapsed back into his sleeping sack. He tried his best to go from there, wrapping himself in all that was available for extra cover and warmth.
“Hrrn. I say, they won’t attack me.”
There was a heavy pause in which Harrow changed into another tunic and then put her armour back on. A few minutes passed in which Yu did not know where to look. It was awkward.
When closing the last straps, Harrow asked: “You are not afraid?”
“What? Why? Of what?”
She just stared.
The answer struck him too late. Well, of course he knew why she asked, but the realisation came only after his hasty response. What seemed to be his word of the day. Yu felt like an idiot.
Witches were feared for good reason, and Witch-Blessed, by extension, were as rare as they were shunned. Still, Harrow’s presence was meant to ensure his safety. Her job was to deliver him to the Albweiss Mountain Guild. She would not betray him and the Worldbender to the Shaira. Not with the entire escort party present.
Unless … they were all in on it.
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