Weijie said nothing.
He knew what was coming and he had known for some time now.
"My bones feel the cold before the cold arrives," Numa continued, his eyes still on the peaks. "My eyes are slower than they were. The tribe needs someone whose body has not yet begun its argument with winter." He paused. "When you return in spring, it will be time."
Time to lead.
Time to take what Numa had carried for decades and carry it himself.
Weijie looked at the mountain range for a long moment.
At the ridgeline he had grown up watching, the same peaks Numa had watched before him and Numa's father before that.
"I will be ready," he said.
Numa turned then, fully, and looked at him the way he looked at things he was trying to commit to memory.
There was something in it that was not quite ideal for tribesmen.
He reached up and gripped Weijie's shoulder once, brief and firm.
"You already are," he said simply.
