Oma let out a laugh.
It cut through the mountain air like a blade. Sharp. Foreign. Almost out of place in the honest quiet of the high slopes.
The wind tugged at my hair and cloak, scattering loose strands. It carried the scent of dry stone, crushed grass, and the faint bite of cold air. The mountains had always spoken in sound—stone cracking, gusts of wind, the hush of snow—but his laughter wasn't one of them. It lingered, alien, slicing through the air.
"Are those your words or his?" he said. "I guess he didn't tell you everything then."
The words stretched longer than they should, echoing faintly off the cliffs. My ears caught the subtle shifts—the creak of distant rock, the flutter of my cloak, the way the wind slowed, as if the mountains themselves were holding their breath. For a heartbeat, I couldn't process them.
Then he moved. Smooth. Controlled. Deliberate.
"I will leave you in your delusions for now," he said.
The word hit harder than any dagger. Not an insult—it was dismissal. My pulse raced, uneven, echoing in my ears like distant drumbeats over snow. My fingers tightened on the folds of my cloak.
"I will be back once I find out what this thing is—"
The dagger in his hand caught the sunlight, dark and lethal. He pointed it at Arinthal. The air thickened, subtle but enough for my skin to tingle. The mountains seemed to lean closer, silent witnesses, waiting.
I stayed still. Didn't speak. Didn't call his name. I knew better. I had seen him do this before—stillness before strike, calm before decision. He wasn't angry. That was what made it terrifying.
He stepped back.
His shadow rose beneath him, thick and fluid, swallowing the light at his feet. And then—he was gone.
No sound. No ripple. No goodbye.
Only absence.
The wind rushed in to fill the space he had left, tugging at my cloak, brushing past my ears, rattling loose strands of hair. My pulse returned, steadying. My fingers traced the rough weave of the cloak. The air bit at my skin. My shoulders ached from holding still, muscles unused to inertia tightening like wire.
Arinthal shifted beside me, silent. Graceful. He crossed his arms, the motion casual, as if we were merely watching clouds instead of balancing the fate of a kingdom.
"I told you he wouldn't join us," he said. "Zefar has him wrapped around his little finger."
I turned to him slowly, eyes narrowing. Sunlight struck his skin, highlighting strange golden glints, almost metallic, as if it weren't flesh at all. He was calm. Untouched by the tension Oma had left behind.
I hated him for it. Not for arrogance—but because it was true.
"Is it some kind of mind control?" I asked. My words sounded clipped, precise, surgical. I wanted it to be something external, something I could remove. Something I could fight.
He didn't answer.
Silence stretched. Wind brushed the mountain grass in long waves. Below, Oma lay spread like a painted map: rooftops shining, rivers glinting, people moving unaware of the tension above.
"No," he said at last. "It's actually something worse."
A tightening gripped my chest. Worse than control. Choice. And choice weighed heavier than steel.
I didn't reply. I watched the horizon, clouds drifting lazily across the endless blue. I had ordered lives under skies like this, justified risk, sacrifice, death. This felt different.
Arinthal smiled. Softly. Not cruel. Not mocking.
"Oh, it's nothing to worry about," he said. "Oma is just in love."
The words struck like a sudden gust of wind. I blinked, slow to process. Love? From Oma? The man who treated attachment as weakness, as a wound to cauterize?
A grin crept onto my face despite myself, sharp with disbelief.
"With who?" I asked. Curiosity flared, reckless, sudden. The mountains seemed to narrow around us. The air pressed in, waiting for his answer.
Arinthal didn't smile wider. Calm. Unchanging.
"Zefar's daughter," he said.
The grin shattered. Gone in a breath.
The wind sharpened. Cold air cut across my cheeks and neck. My muscles tensed under the weight of the revelation. The mountains seemed to close in. The grass brushed against my boots, stiff and brittle, snapping underfoot.
Zefar. Not a general. Not a tyrant. A father.
The implications slammed into place, precise and unavoidable. Oma's certainty—the laugh, the refusal, the stillness—suddenly made sense. Love. Not manipulation. Love. Not control.
Love was worse.
Love could make a warrior hesitate. Love could make a king lie. Love could turn the sharpest instincts into vulnerability.
I shivered as the cold sank further, biting deeper. My cloak whipped against my arms. I could feel each thread, rough and familiar, grounding me in the moment. The mountains smelled of stone, old soil, and winter creeping in from the peaks. Each breath was sharp, bracing.
My grin twisted bitterly, unyieldingly.
"What's her name?" I asked.
The question floated in the cold mountain air, carried on wind and stone alike.
Because suddenly, the war I thought I understood had a face I had never considered. The danger wasn't just Zefar. It wasn't just Oma.
It was everything he had left her to lose.
I shifted, boots crunching against the frost-hardened ground. The air shivered with tension, carrying the faint scrape of gravel down unseen slopes. Every gust felt like a warning, every crack of stone a signal. The wind tugged at my cloak again, whispering past my ears, curling around my shoulders, reminding me of the stillness that Oma left behind.
Arinthal remained silent beside me. His presence was a calm counterpoint to the sharp mountain air. The shadows at his feet stretched long, moving lazily with the sun. Even in silence, he held weight, measured, and certain.
I drew a slow, steadying breath. The chill filled my lungs, carrying with it the scent of stone and dry grass. I could feel Oma's absence pressing around me like a wall. The temperature sank further as a cloud passed overhead, dropping a faint veil of gray over the peaks.
I clenched my hands against my cloak. The fabric was coarse beneath my fingers, grounding me as the implications of what I had just learned settled like frost. Love. The word rang in my ears louder than any shout, heavier than any command.
And for the first time, I understood the scale of what was at stake—not armies, not kingdoms, but hearts. Choices. Vulnerabilities.
I swallowed. Wind tugged at my hair again. The mountains smelled sharper now, the dry earth and crushed grass mingling with the faint hint of frost climbing up from the rocks. I felt the temperature bite deeper into my fingertips.
The world narrowed to the two of us, the golden figure at my side, the empty space where Oma had stood, the sharp air against my skin, the cold pressing against my bones. The threat was no longer distant, no longer abstract. It had a shape. A name. And it carried the weight of what could be lost.
I raised my gaze. The horizon stretched, jagged peaks meeting sky. Clouds moved slowly, indifferent. The wind tugged at my cloak, carrying a faint echo of laughter I could not place.
I breathed again, slow and deliberate, letting the air fill my chest. My fingers flexed, feeling the rough cloth of the cloak, the sharp edge of the mountain underfoot. Every sound, every movement, every cold gust reminded me: the war I thought I understood had shifted.
And the face I had never considered now loomed in front of me, unseen but impossible to ignore.