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It had been a night of undignified misery. By the time morning crept in, Yu knew every warped floorboard between his room and the communal latrine by heart. Sleepless and sick, he had run back and forth over and over. Worse, he was certain every guard and guest in this forsaken guild now had a far more intimate impression of him than they ever should.
Eventually, exhaustion had won.
He had fallen asleep. On the fucking toilet.
A creak. A shift in the dim light. Yu woke with a violent jolt, body stiff, stomach a hollow pit of regret. A figure stood in the doorway, framed against the flickering lantern glow.
“Good morning, ” the voice drawled, rich with amusement.
Yu squinted. Estingar — no, Deltington? Yu’s sleep-starved mind struggled. The blurred silhouette leaned against the doorframe in smug detachment, utterly unfazed by the stench of suffering. Then he turned his head and bellowed into the hallway: “Brother, come here! You gotta see this!”
Yu shot upright, or tried to. His body refused to move — legs weak, stomach still churned, balance wrecked, pants still down. “Oh, gods, get out!” he rasped, voice wrecked from dehydration.
The possible Estingar grinned, showing rows of unsettlingly sharp teeth. Needles in a smile: “So, you live here now? In the toilet?”
“Get out!”
“You might as well,” the intruder – whichever arsehole it was – continued, folding his arms, “After last night.”
“Fuck off! You’re the worst!” Yu’s breath hitched, sharp and shallow. Heart hammering, he janked his pants back into place, hurrying his arms through the braces. His limbs felt like waterlogged wood, slow and useless.
The guard barked a laugh. “Ha! You don’t even know which one I am, do you?”
“The one with no goddamn boundaries!” Yu got up and lurched forward to slam the door, but Estingar moved faster. A heavy paw met his chest, stopping him with an infuriating ease.
“Some of your feathers are silver too, you know?” the guard said, his voice tipping into something almost conversational. “You’ve got streaks around your face and chest. But you knew that, right?”
Yu froze.
Estingar gave him a grin that was all needles. And then the arsehole stepped back and left, still chuckling to himself as he disappeared down the hall. “Get ready,” he called as he sauntered off, voice echoing along the stone walls. “Bubs wants to see you.”
Yu did not leave the bathroom for another thirty minutes. His skin crawled. His mouth tasted foul, his breath sour with bile and old sickness. His limbs ached and something raw and acid-bitter coiled in his stomach. Humiliation sat heavy in his chest, thick and cloying, pressing against his ribs like deep water drowning a sinking bird. He needed to scrub. To scrape away the sweat and filth clinging to his feathers and skin.
The guild’s communal washroom was nothing like the opulent bathhouses Tria had installed at the estate, but it was a far cry from the piss-stinking, shit-ridden pits he had been forced to use in the villages. It was a luxury of sorts, in the way a prison with a clean floor was still preferable to one swimming in filth. Most of all, it was an unforgivable waste of water—one that no one from the Barnstreams would have ever tolerated.
The washroom had been carved from dark, polished stone, its floors subtly sloped towards a central drain. The toilet was a deep, basin-like structure, hewn from the same rock. It was fitted with a crude but functional flush system; an overhead reservoir, connected to a rusted lever. A pull sent waste sluicing down some unseen channel, disappearing into the gods-knew-where. A second reservoir fed into the sink. Next to it sat a block of coarse, sand-laden soap and a stiff-bristled brush, meant for scrubbing the stone. Yu made full use of them.
-
Finally done, Yu dragged himself back to his room, shoving the heavy wooden door shut with what little strength remained. He barely made it two steps before slumping against it, head tipped back, lungs working through shallow, unsteady breaths. His limbs felt carved from lead. Every inch of him ached — his bones, his skull, his muscles, the hollow pit of his stomach. And yet, he had only slept until noon.
Seven hours.
Seven measly fucking hours to sleep off four weeks of exhaustion.
Seven.
A fucking joke.
Even at the estate, on days where nothing was expected of him but silence and obedience, he had never functioned on less than ten. Tria had called him lazy for it, sneered down at him as if sleep were a failing of character, rather than a necessity his body demanded. And now? After weeks of strain and strenuous travel, of cold and filth and stress, they expected him to operate on seven?
Yu exhaled sharply, raking a trembling arm through the tangle of his feathers. His eyes flicked to the window. He forced himself up, crossing the room on stiff, unsteady legs before leaning into the narrow sill.
Outside, the storm raged, a swirling, impenetrable mass of white. It ate the world beyond. It swallowed the sun and almost all light, which made it impossible to tell the time of day. The only glow in the room came from a small white orb hovering beside the grand clock next to the door. The mechanical construction ticked steadily.
Yu listened.
At first, to the ticking. Then, for anything beyond the walls.
The mountains had a voice of their own — a brutal, ceaseless wail that scraped across the eaves, wormed through the cracks, and settled deep into the bones of the place. But beyond the storm, beyond the suffocating cold, there was nothing. No distant voices from the Snowtrail. No whispering remnants of the incomprehensible things he had heard over the past weeks. No lingering echoes of witches chanting. Just the wind, howling.
Then, Yu listened for something else.
For any trace of Terbert.
His breath shallowed. His focus sharpened. He strained for the faintest scratch of movement, the subtlest disturbance in the walls; any sign that he was not about to be greeted by some grotesque creep somehow lurking behind the stone.
Nothing.
Only the muffled sounds of the guild. Someone snoring. The quiet shift of people in their rooms. Someone turning a page, someone rummaging through a bag, the rustle of cloth as another undressed. The low murmur of travellers in the halls. Below, the distant clatter of dishes, the scrape of knives, Bubs muttering a recipe to himself in the kitchen. And above it all, the mountains raged on; roaring their fury through the corridors of the world.
Yu barely recognised himself in the warped reflection of the window. The image was dull, stretched thin by imperfections in the old glass, like something peeling away. He turned from it, dragging his gaze over the room instead.
Minimalist did not even begin to cover it, and yet, there was nothing more to say. The space was a stone box, just habitable enough to qualify as a room. A narrow bed. A small table. A single shelf. A chair. The latter two barely more than slabs of rock, different in size but identical in purpose. The bed and shelf were the same; carved straight from the walls, as though the room had been hollowed out rather than built. The only objects not hewn from solid stone were the slim wardrobe, the mechanical clock, and the mirror.
Yu’s eyes lingered on the mirror.
And then — silver.
Of all the fucking colours. Silver?
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Yu muttered.
He stepped closer to the mirror, tilting his head, twisting his neck, searching. Whatever the fuck the presumed Estingar had been talking about – whatever supposed silver had caught his eye – Yu saw none of it. Just the same dull plumage he had always known. Feathers in shades of not-quite-white, not-quite-grey, the dark smudges that ran from his beak to around his eyes verging on black. It was a lifeless, washed out plumage, the kind of thing that never drew attention and suited him just fine. Dull. No colours. Utterly unremarkable.
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Yu knew what silver looked like. Silver gleamed. It caught the light, it shimmered in coins, in blades, in polished jewellery. His feathers did none of that.
This had to be some elaborate joke. A fresh humiliation at the expense of the new guy. Had not Estingar called himself the funny one? Or maybe, with those insectoid eyes of his, Estingar saw something else entirely. Maybe he saw the world on some sort of bizarre alien colour spectrum that someone with normal sight could not register.
Silver was not that far from grey, was it?
Wait.
Hold on.
Yu froze mid-motion. His stomach sunk as a particular memory surged, sudden and unwelcome. Harrow. That night by the fire. She had said something strange when he had asked about her shimmering exoskeleton.
“Funny you say that.”
At the time, he had let it pass. Too much had been happening. Their first nights together, his mind drowning in exhaustion, raw frustration, and the bitter wreckage of his split with Tria. He had not questioned it. Had not given it space to linger. But now — Now, it clawed at him. Had Harrow seen it, too?
Yu stared at his reflection, a sickening thought taking root. Did everyone see it?
The idea that he had spent his entire life looking like some gaudy piece of metal made his stomach churn all over again. His mind clawed through old memories, replaying every conversation, every glance, every offhand remark. Had there been hints? Had others noticed? Had they known — and simply never said a word? Not because it was not there, but because it was just another layer of weird and wrong draped over him.
“Fuck this shit.”
He had never wanted to stand out more than he already did. Being a cripple was one thing. A bastard another. But a walking spectacle? A freak that shimmered, screaming for attention worse than a female in full mating plumage?
Well. If he stuck with this guild job, at least he would never have to see another fina ever again.
Yu exhaled sharply, dragging an arm down his face.
Yesterday, he had arrived.
“This is an exception,” Bubs had said about the food.
In some way, this applied to more than the food. It applied to the entire night.
Yesterday, Yu had arrived as a traveller. He had been a guest. Today, he was a guard. Supposedly. He was sure he had already shattered any chance of making a good impression. He should feel something about that – guilt, frustration, embarrassment – but mostly, he just felt done. Ready to give up.
But … then what?
Where would he go?
What would he do?
What else could he do?
Yu let out a slow, shuddering breath. His eyes flicked back to the warped reflection in the mirror. At least he had scrubbed off the filth. He could go downstairs. Force himself to eat. But the thought of food made his stomach lurch, his throat clench.
Instead, he sat down and started preening his feathers, if only to steady himself. A fixed pattern. A familiar motion. Something that required no thought at all.
-
With his oh-so-special senses, Yu had expected a job that consisted of standing around, sitting around, and staring around. It was, in fact, the only part of this entire arrangement he had remotely looked forward to — shitty joke fully intended.
Combat? Magic? He lacked not just skill and experience for either, but even the basic physiology to fake it. He could not stress enough his lack of arms, hands, or any other practical extremity one might employ in a fight. That alone should have firmly planted him on the easy side of things.
Of all the soul-sucking ways to scrape together a living, this had actually seemed one of the least intolerable. Room and board included? A small mercy. Though it was hard to feel grateful while standing in this claustrophobic cave, surrounded by shit weather, a deadly witch coven, and expectations he could never hope to meet. Truthfully, he hated everything about this place.
If it were up to him, Yu would have happily spent his life “rotting away”, as his shirka had called it, back in his room on her estate. Those years had been perfect — well, they would have been, if not for Tria herself. Though by now, Yu would take her over arseholes like Estingar and Gurs in a heartbeat.
Yu had grown up cocooned in comfort, never wanting for money, clean clothes, or food. Responsibilities? Someone else’s problem. His life had been a hazy, indulgent dream, untouched by the petty dramas that consumed everyone else, and blissfully free of the endless expectations people seemed so eager to shackle themselves to.
Stepping outside? Socialising? Pretending to be a functional, respectable part of the community? Pretending to feel blessed to be alive? Pretending to want to be?
None of it had been necessary.
None of it had mattered.
Because, as simple as it was, Yu had not mattered.
And it had been perfect.
Well. As he said. Except for Tria. She had tolerated him. Barely. And only because blood – or whatever twisted obligation she felt toward him – forced her to. Her resentment had never been subtle. She was ambition incarnate, all sharp edges and unyielding drive, and he had never fit into the grand design of a career in power she had carved out for herself. He had been a smear, a flaw in the blueprint, a problem she had never quite solved.
And yet, Yu had never understood why she was so fixated on getting rid of him. Yes, she wanted him gone from her life. Fine. But why the obsession with controlling his life? Why force him into a career? Why insist he needed a purpose?
Could she not simply have left him in peace? If not under her roof, why not nearby? Even if she did not want him to live with her, why could he not still live like her? His own apartment. His own quiet corner of the estate. A single room. A place where he could exist without forcing himself into the world’s expectations. What the fuck was wrong with that? Where was the problem?
He would do his thing. She would do hers. Simple. Sorted.
But no. That would have been too easy. Too kind.
Tria could never just let him be. She always needed more from him. More attention. More effort. More gratitude for being the bastard soul oh-so-blessed to draw breath in this cursed world.
Tria had built her wealth and reputation on the backs of humans. She had acquired and repurposed the Barnstream habitat, breeding generations of them for efficiency. She had trained them, optimising their labour to expand the river system and cultivate the garanger, a hardy, nutrient-rich fish bred to thrive in her controlled waterways. When the Shaira had drained the rivers during the crisis years of 616 to 619, Tria’s artificial channels, sealed within the protected habitat, had endured. She had single-handedly kept the north-eastern region from starving. And for that, she had been rewarded with immeasurable riches and an unassailable reputation. Her name stood for wealth and power.
By now, her humans barely needed oversight. The operation had long since outgrown her direct involvement. The workers were highly skilled, well, for humans, capable of managing vast aspects of their routines independently. With that, the whole enterprise had become a thing that basically ran itself. All Tria had to do was sit back and rake in the profits. Ever the opportunist, she had leveraged that independence to secure her status among the northern Barnstream elite. Barring bormen from the habitat entirely had been a calculated political move, one that had won her widespread admiration.
She had more than enough. More than enough money. More than enough space.
It would have cost her nothing to let Yu stay.
She could have built him a place. She could have let him take up residence in one of the unused watchtowers. Their paths never even had to cross.
But no.
“Fuck you,” Yu muttered at the mirror.
Why had he been the one to leave? His home, his village, his country? Why the fuck had he been the one exiled to this frozen, miserable corner of the world? Why should he suffer when there was no need to make his life even worse than what his birth had already inflicted upon him? What was the fucking point?
He had never bought into that sanctimonious not even ker keep their wizard children nonsense. He was a cripple, not an idiot.
Tria was simply selfish. There was no other reason. None of what she had built was his achievement, and that was why she refused to share.
The thing was, it was not as if Yu had not tried.
Had he not gone to the wizard academies? Had he not done exactly what was expected of him? Was it his fault he had no proper magic? Was it his fault his body was unsuited for a normal fina life, for manual labour, for anything other than being what he was?
The way Tria treated him, she certainly made it feel that way. She had been blunt: if he refused to make use of his abilities, whatever she imagined those to be, she would throw him straight into the habitat. Dump him among the humans to fish and farm like the rest of her livestock. And he had believed her. That threat had sunk deep, lodged itself in his gut like a rusted hook. Yu had seen how they lived, and it was most definitely not for him.
His thoughts twisted, festering. He could hear her voice, sharp and dismissive, laced with that thinly veiled contempt she never quite bothered to hide. Always reminding him of his inadequate attitude. No, the years on the estate had not been perfect.
But they had been better than this.
-
Yu had assumed being a guard would be easy. Standing around. Watching. Nothing physically taxing. It was, in fact, on of the reasons he had at least somewhat complied with this wretched arrangement. All the other reasons were that Tria had made full use of her legal rights as his shirka to force him.
But today proved him wrong.
The guild’s definition of “guard” was insultingly loose. Guards did not just watch. They did everything. Every menial, tedious, degrading task even remotely connected to keeping the stream of travellers comfortable. And as the new recruit, naturally, Yu got saddled with all the shit jobs.
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