Still lying on his side, Yu stared at the small window. It was not so much a window as a thick slab of glass set directly into the stone. Even if it could be opened, he would never fit through.

  He pushed himself upright, and pressed his right eye against the glass. There was nothing to see of the wilderness outside, no landscape and no depth. The heavy, warped glass reduced the surrounding mountains to vague contours, dark masses pressed against the impenetrable black of the night. Within, Yu could only make out the faintest flicker of the light orb hovering above the entrance below. Its glow died quickly, obscured by storm and snow.

Yu could not say whether is was wishful thinking, or something more desperate, but after botching his dinner duties with Bubs – and everything else – he had this idea that it might actually work in the syndicate’s favour to send him back as unfit for work. His dismissal would signal normality. It would show safety and stability, control and confidence; a guild so well-managed, that it could even afford to discard surplus guards. Deceived by this illusion of protection, the Barnstream people would never expect a bunch of raiders coming through. Was that not the perfect scheme to get rid of Yu and secure their attack at the same time?

           Unless.

       Unless they intended something far worse 
                              than just getting him out of the way.

Yu’s gaze lowered to the narrow ledge beneath the window. His passport lay there. He did not remember getting it out of his backpack. Nor out of its casing. Well, he must have shown it yesterday, at the reception, had he not? Had he set it aside while changing in the morning? Or after the burns? No idea. It was another one of those details that slipped from his mind. All his memories from last night had long blurred into a continuous smear of effort and pain, as though the whole night had already been erased, or worse, left deliberately untouched. It was not just the night. It was everything since leaving the estate, really.

Still lying on his side, Yu stared at the small window. It was not so much a window as a thick slab of thick glass set directly into the stone. Even if it could be opened, he would never fit through.

He pushed himself upright, and pressed his right eye against the glass. There was nothing to see of the wilderness outside, no landscape and no depth. The heavy, warped glass reduced the surrounding mountains to vague contours, dark masses pressed against the impenetrable black of the night. Within, Yu could only make out the faintest flicker of the light orb hovering above the entrance below. Its glow died quickly, obscured by storm and snow.

Yu could not say whether is was wishful thinking, or something more desperate, but after botching his dinner duties with Bubs – and everything else – he had this idea that it might actually work in the syndicate’s favour to send him back as unfit for work. His dismissal would signal normality. It would show safety and stability, control and confidence; a guild so well-managed, that it could even afford to discard surplus guards. Deceived by this illusion of protection, the Barnstream people would never expect a bunch of raiders coming through. Was that not the perfect scheme to get rid of Yu and secure their attack at the same time?

                  Unless.

       Unless they intended
      something far worse
than just getting him
                      out of the way.

Yu’s gaze lowered to the narrow ledge beneath the window. His passport lay there. He did not remember getting it out of his backpack. Nor out of its casing. Well, he must have shown it yesterday, at the reception, had he not? Had he set it aside while changing in the morning? Or after the burns? No idea. It was another one of those details that slipped from his mind. All his memories from last night had long blurred into a continuous smear of effort and pain, as though the whole night had already been erased, or worse, left deliberately untouched. It was not just the night. It was everything since leaving the estate, really.

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