It was the crows that alerted him first—wheeling above as he climbed the narrow mountain trail, ill-tempered shapes slicing the sky.
Kael had seen them circling while still far below the high path, a menacing sign that sped up his climb and twisted his gut.
Their wings cut black silhouettes against the pale sky; their harsh calls echoed off the cliff faces.
They taunted him from the branches, sweeping in low with insolent courage.
Caw, caw, caw. Their calls swelled, a discordant, mocking chorus over Kael and the large, silent figure.
Spinning toward the sound, he snatched up a stone and hurled it skyward, nearly clipping a crow that perched on an overhanging fir bough. The bird cawed indignantly and retreated, only to be replaced by more of its mob.
He turned back to Garrick's body, already growing cold in the mountain air. He lay on his side, one arm outstretched toward the cave entrance. His sword was gone.
He first closed the soldier’s eyes, using thumb and forefinger to gently lower the lids over the vacant stare. The hardened features, always so stern in life, looked almost peaceful now, finally at rest. The etched lines had started to soften, revealing the man he might have been.
Kael assessed the wounds: a deep slash across the chest, defensive cuts on the forearms, a decisive thrust to the throat. Garrick had not died easily.
The cave entrance was marked by signs of struggle—bootprints in the snow, smears of darkened blood, a discarded crossbow bolt embedded in a nearby tree trunk.
Kael dragged the body out of the cave, leaving a trail of pooling and hardening blood across the stone floor until they reached the snowy clearing below a high drift. The crows scattered momentarily, watching from a safe distance, waiting.
The evidence of Garrick’s final stand was scattered around the cave entrance. Scorch marks on the stone where a firebomb had detonated. A patch of hair caught on a jagged rock. A piece of Crown armor, dented and discarded. Garrick had extracted a price for his life, taking some of the Crown’s soldiers with him.
After wrapping Garrick’s body in a rough blanket, Kael climbed above the snowdrift and began methodically pushing the snow down, a miniature avalanche that gradually covered the fallen warrior. The white powder built up foot by foot until nothing of Garrick remained visible. Kael gathered stones from nearby, piling them atop the snow mound to mark the temporary grave.
Then, he did something he had never done before. He said a prayer, fragments from before the Crown had become his only faith. It was Oona’s voice, the whispers she said to him and his sister, simple words.
His voice was barely a whisper, the sounds drifting down to join the ashes in the smoldering fire.
The crows had fallen silent, as if in respect, or perhaps because there was nothing left of him, in spirit or in flesh.
As he kicked dirt on the fire to extinguish it, his boot caught—on a snag, a resistance. He bent down, thinking a root or stone had caught his foot.
But whatever it was, it wasn’t a root. As he closed his fingers around it, it felt like a string. Or a leather cord.
Kael pulled it free and held it up so the locket could catch the ebbing light.
A necklace. Not just any necklace, her necklace. Sarah’s. The cord was broken, not cut but snapped with force. Had it broken in struggle? Been ripped off? Or had she left it deliberately, knowing he might follow?
The silver bird caught glimpses of the afternoon light filtering through the cave entrance. It turned and spun from his hand, weaving memories like a lens catching light, casting the past into the empty cave.
Visions returned—his sister in the forest, tall trees overhead, the hiding space Oona had found for them, that crevice in the stone so very like this one. He had left to scout ahead, promising to return quickly.
“Wait here. I’ll come back.” The same words he had spoken to Sarah.
And just like now, he had returned to signs of struggle, of battle, of someone dragged away while he was gone.
He had been too late then. And he was too late again.
The parallel was brutal in its clarity. His sister had been taken, and he had never seen her again. Now Sarah had been dragged off, a cycle Kael seemed doomed to repeat, over and over.
Kael pocketed the pendant, the cool metal a promise against his skin. Just outside the mouth, he looked out over the high ridge, studying the tracks left by the garrison that had surrounded the cave. Their bootprints told the story of their approach, their attack, and their departure—with a prisoner.
This time, he would go after them.