“So you want to search for him within the mountain?” Yu asked Fallem that night as they worked on his tent together. Yu had never heard of anyone attempting such a thing. As far as he knew, a wizard taken by the Shaira was a wizard lost to the world.
“Yes.”
The tent was a flat construction, hardly more than an extension of his sleeping sack. Yu held one corner pole steady with his arms while pulling the fabric taut with one claw. Meanwhile, Fallem busied himself with the hooks, ropes, and all the other whatnots Yu had neither the patience nor the skill to handle.
“Only … you nine?” Yu’s tone was flat. The sheer audacity – or perhaps the insanity – of the idea staggered him. Fallem was straight up delusional after winning against those orks.
The Shaira’s stronghold had loomed for decades, unyielding against orks, wizards, armies, and named fighters alike. Their numbers were unknown, but the reports agreed on this: they were many, and they were powerful. Witches, shadow-warpers, beings twisted by the mountains and the ancient magics that seeped through them. Was Fallem’s party far stronger than he had realised, or simply much, much stupider?
Fallem did not look up from his work, his fingers methodically tying off one rope after the other. “We’ll be ten.”
“Ten?” Yu repeated, the word dripping with scepticism. As if the number somehow made the plan less absurd.
“There’s one more person I intend to recruit,” Fallem explained, hammering hooks into place along the tent’s outer frame with quick, practiced motions. “Lorien Warshaper. I heard she’s currently residing at the guild.”
“Who’s that?”
“She’s —” Fallem paused, his head snapping up sharply, his gaze locking onto Yu with a mixture of incredulity and something bordering on offense. “Wait. What? You don’t know — How old are you?”
“What does that matter?” Yu snapped, his voice edged with irritation. He hated that question. It always came wrapped in the same thin veneer — condescension masquerading as curiosity, as if his age, or the lack of it, was an indictment of his worth. He knew exactly what the question implied: It was meant to say that he was not living up to some arbitrary expectation.
“It just seems odd,” Fallem continued, undeterred. “I never met anyone unfamiliar with Warshaper or her role in the Rivermine Heritage War.”
“Well, here I am,” Yu shot back. This was exactly why he hated engaging, why he loathed pretending to care. Why the fuck should he know every random person, just because others believed they mattered?
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