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Harrow must have listened in, sensing Yu’s dissatisfaction with Jerikall's reply. She added, her voice raw, deep and strangely resonating: “Know thisss, hrrm, the guild, yesss, it is not simple shelter, no, but place of proving. Combatants sharpen blades. Wizards learn limits. They test. Against ice, stone, sky. Against themselves. Against what breaks.”
“What?” Yu was greatly intimidated by her, but also hated the way she talked. It was incredibly annoying — the drawn-out sibilance, the strange cadence. There was just so much noise and nonsense between what was actual words.
“The guild, it bends blades, sharpens minds, yesss, makes those who test their limits … whole — or broken, hrrm. A forge. But fire is the mountain.”
“True,” Jerikall interjected smoothly, clearly unbothered by Harrow’s peculiar manner. “In contrast to the Northern Desert, the Albweiss is rich in Adhar for such training. With that, the guild has attracted a diverse and ever-changing population, including wandering mercenaries, hunters, and explorers."
“Mhm,” had been Yu's somewhat affirmation before curling up as tightly as he could near the fire. This was one of the rare nights when they had found refuge in a rocky alcove. It was the first they managed to light a fire. Most nights, they camped out on the Snowtrail whenever the weather allowed, relying on sturdy tent constructions that could withstand the exposed conditions.
Yu hated carrying so much gear. The weight of the tents and supplies was exhausting, and the constant expectation that he contribute to the group only made it worse. Early in the journey, they had assigned him tasks like setting up his own tent or keeping watch, but whenever they stopped for the day, Yu had proven utterly useless.
The first few days had been the worst. He could not figure out how to set up his tent, even after several demonstrations — not just because he did not know how to properly anchor the thing, with those millions of ropes and spikes designed to hold against the storms, he just did not get it; and not even out of sheer defiance, though he was convinced that the escort team should handle everything, as it was their duty to keep him safe, they got paid for that, after all! No, even as his attitude softened and his will to not fully embarrass himself was there, Yu simply could not muster the energy. He could not keep up. Most nights, he collapsed the moment they stopped, his body giving out before he could manage even the simplest tasks. By the time he dragged himself into his much too thin bedding, the rest of the party had already prepared the camp and taken their posts.
On the night by the campfire, Yu lingered just long enough to choke down his share of the meal. It was a lukewarm paste flecked with chunks of unidentifiable meat and tough grains. No one talked much, which suited him just fine. As soon as his tin plate was scraped clean, he withdrew into himself, shutting out the droning talk of repairs, inventory assessments, and other practical matters he would neither contribute to nor care about. Conversations drained Yu, especially with strangers. He had never practised the art of casual talk, and even if he had, he doubted he would find any value in it here. He had never had what you would call conventional friends and he did not expect to find any amongst this group of escorts that basically got paid to have him around. That was quite all right by him, actually, since he was not interested in socialising anyway. Socialising was exhausting, so this was just fine.
Bundled into his sleeping sack and swaddled in layers of damp, scratchy blankets, Yu huddled close to the fire. His eyes remained closed for the most part, though now and then he watched the flames. It was not much of a fire. It was a small, tightly controlled and utterly functional thing, nothing that smoked or produced much heat. There were no dancing sparks or warmth to offer comfort, just a smouldering heap of coal mixed with ground borrin powder that burned low and steady. A metal cage confined it, a skeletal structure that served as both a windbreak and a rudimentary stove.
At least these people knew what they were doing. Their equipment seemed forged for the bleak realities of the Albweiss Mountains: weatherproofed clothing that made the bitter cold almost bearable; alchemical powders for vitality and endurance that clung to the air with a faintly acrid tang; and a bunch of items enchanted for protection. The provisions were as compact as they were bleak. Food came from bricks of compressed mush, powders that bloated into a viscous sludge when mixed with water — slobber that was all texture and nutrients, with every hint of flavour sacrificed to efficiency. No matter how hungry he got, Yu found no joy in eating it, only the mechanical certainty of survival, spooned down in silence.
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.
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She was a kyrthik, a race Yu knew well, yet he had never encountered one like her. She towered above him, far stronger than any female he had seen — or male, for that matter. Her abilities included a natural attunement to vibrations and seismic shifts, allowing her to sense danger long before others could. Though she did not lead or speak often, she held an undeniable authority within the group. And also, as she now returned to the fire and removed her cloak and armour, Yu realised Harrow was an anomaly.
In recent years, small groups of kyrthik had begun to settle along selected streams in the Barnstream regions, their presence stretching from the northern reaches to as far south as Rona. However, they confined themselves to tairan-led communities, avoiding the more habitable southern lands. The bormen, who held dominion over the fertile southern territories, actively suppressed tairan influence and opposed any kyrthik settlements, for these peoples competed for the scarce fish that swam in the freshwater rivers. Beyond fish, the kyrthik subsisted on algae and the mineral-rich structures that formed when the rivers ran dry, exposing the riverbeds. Their hybrid bodies were a grotesque fusion of living flesh and a unique mineral that grew directly from their skeletal structure. To sustain this, they refined and consumed calcified, clay-rich rock masses — an unfathomable resource that neither the bormen nor the tairan could contest.
As for Harrow, Yu had immediately recognised that the portions of her exoskeleton he had seen on her face and hands were denser and more pronounced than the fragile forms of the kyrthik he had encountered near his shirka’s human habitat. This was only the sixth night with the escort party, and the first time he had seen more of her. She had always worn her white cloak and armour, concealing her figure against the snow-covered landscape. Even at night, he had never seen her undress or change. He had always drifted to sleep while she prepared the camp or kept watch, only to wake to find her already on duty. Through it all, she had kept the heavy cloak draped over her.
But now, as she stood in the firelight and discarded both her cloak and the thin robe she wore beneath her armour, Yu understood why she had kept herself hidden: her exoskeleton was not raw bone, nor the rough, grey-white, matte material he had come to associate with the kyrthik of his homeland. No, Harrow’s body was made of the most startling crystalline substance. Her upper torso was covered in intricate, multi-layered structures, forming a seamless, natural armour. Her elongated body bore a shimmering, breastplate-like formation. Her multi-jointed limbs ended in sharp, claw-like protrusions that shifted from an almost transparent exoskeleton to the rough, matte extensions that formed her fingers.
In the fire's glow, the crystalline surfaces caught the light, refracting it in shimmering hues. It was a sharp contrast to the brittle, organic forms of her kin. Yu stared at her from across the fire. Her body seemed to be wrapped in liquid gemstones.
Yu was captivated by her appearance. Where just moments ago he had struggled to keep his eyes open, now he could not look away. It was not that she was suddenly … beautiful — at least not in the way that Yu recognised beauty in fina, tairan or human women, or even in the borminna. No, she was not beautiful like a person was beautiful. She was beautiful like … a place. In the firelight, the smooth, crystalline structures of her body reminded him of a calm river catching the early morning sunlight, warm and tranquil.
“Yesss, what do you need, Yu?” she stared back, her gaze locking with his.
Yu flinched. He had been so fixated on her form that he had not realised she had caught his stare.
“Nothing,” he burstled out. In truth, he needed far too many things, but what was the point? Then again, what was there to lose? “What’s with your body?”
"What?"
"Why do you shimmer like that? This isn’t normal for a kyrthik."
"Funny, you say that."
“What?” Yu sat up in his sleeping bag.
She held his gaze with eerie intent, then very obviously looked him up and down, as if she mustered him through all of his blankets.
He stared, utterly confused. “So … is it normal?” he asked.
There was another long pause as she studied him. “No,” she finally answered. “Is not.” She gave a series of her many strange guttural sounds, none of which Yu could interpret, before some more actual words came out of her: “I am Witch-Blessed. Blessed, yesss, by frost.”
“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.
Slowly, Yu sat back up.
Did the Shaira not capture wizards? Was all of this an elaborate scam? Perhaps the party profited doubly — cashing in twice by offering safe escort along the Snowtrail while secretly delivering travellers to the witches. And even if they were confronted, could anyone fault them for claiming their charge had been taken by an “unexpected” Shaira attack?
“I mean …,” Yu fumbled for words, “You wouldn’t have told me, would you? If it were a bad thing. If it were a secret.” If it were a secret plan.
“Hrrrn,” Harrow flashed a sharp grin, her teeth glinting in the firelight. “Yesss.”
Very much not reassured, Yu watched as Harrow stood, discarded the remnants of the firelight’s glow, and threw over her coat before striding over to Bawal, the omira who had taken the watch after her. She moved with an ease that unsettled him, as though the cold and the strain of the journey had no weight on her at all.
For his own peace of mind, Yu forced himself to believe. He had no other choice. If he wanted to survive this curse-blessed journey – regardless of where it ended – he had to sleep. Exhaustion pulled at him like an undertow, dragging him closer to collapse. What other options did he have? Flee the party and attempt the long, unsecured trek back to Undertellems alone? He would either starve, freeze to death or fall to one of the beasts that roamed these wilds. And even if by some miracle he made it back, his shirka would only send him right out again.
Despite all of the mess and commotion in his head, there was a part of him that truly wanted to believe Harrow. Who was he to judge someone whose life had been warped by magic? If anyone understood the shitshow that came with apparent magical blessings that ruined your life, it was him.
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