Book One – Chapter 15

As everyone settled for the night, Harrow took the first watch. About every half hour, someone would stir the fire, sending it into a brief, crackling fury. More than once, they for fuck’s sake not again jostled Yu awake with the same brutish indifference. In that wretched state of utter exhaustion and sleep-deprived awareness, he found himself staring at Harrow through the wavering haze of firelight.

She stood at the edge of the alcove, her form a monolith of shadow against the darkness beyond. The embers cast her in stark relief, illuminating the hard edges of her muscular form and the languid menace of the massive sickle resting at her side. The blade gleamed faintly, a pale curve that seemed to catch and hold the light like a predator’s eye. Harrow was still, so unnervingly still that she might have been carved from the very stone that encased them. The fire flickered, and her shadow stretched long and crooked, twisting across the ground like something alive.

Throughout the journey, Harrow had shown an unnerving level of attention to both Yu’s and the Worldbender wizard’s needs. It was not care, not in the sense that suggested any warmth or compassion, but something colder, practical, like assessing faulty equipment. She had never indulged in small talk or sought to know Yu as a person. She had shown no interest in his past — the estate, the human habitat, the peculiarities of his shirka, his appearance, or the reasons he had thrown himself into the guild’s path. There were no attempts at polite curiosity, no thin veneer of camaraderie. To Harrow, Yu was nothing more than a task, an obligation to be managed, an inconvenience to be dealt with. A burden.

In that context, if she had a question, it was never directed at him; it was drilled into him with uncaring precision. She constantly demanded to know what he needed. What did he need to take fewer breaks? What did he need to walk faster, stumble less? What did he need to stop whining about his feet? What did he need to stop snoring loud enough to alert every ravenous creature within a kilometre? If he truly could not “help his nature”, then what did he need to stay awake throughout the night? — Fuck you. What did he need to get up in time, as early as the others? — He needed to actually sleep without someone poking him every 20 minutes. What did he need to pack faster in the morning? — Take a wild guess. What did he need to pack more efficiently, without unpacking and repacking three times before he got it right? — It was hands, you fucking arsehole.