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THEY WAITED for the strangers to approach.

At first, they were shadows, wavering at the edge of the guild's light where the glow of the orbs met the pallid traces of moonlight. The storm stretched and distorted their forms, bending them into flickering phantoms. As they climbed the steps towards the entrance, their outlines gradually sharpened, figures carved into the night by the fierce glow of the orbs. Their silhouettes burned orange against the storm's chaotic blackness, like distant embers drifting through darkness.

The guards formed a line at the entrance. Tirran and Estingar stood at the far edges of the platform, flanking the guild's gateway. Yu found himself in the centre, left of the door. Imbiad was to his right, positioned between him and Tirran. All eyes were fixed on the approaching group, with the eerie exception of Tirran.

As always, Tirran's gaze went everywhere at once, but then, his ears flicked distinctly towards Estingar. A subtle question. The ulbatan's wing gave a brief flap, the avian equivalent of a shrug. His clawed fingers tapped rhythmically on the knob of a grey staff which he had brought from within. It stood upright, with the tip resting on the platform between Estingar's talons.

"Will?" Tirran asked, his voice barely audible over the wind.

"Locked," replied Estingar, his tone as unruffled as his posture.

There was more communicated than being said, more than Yu could decipher, but he understood that the guards were on high alert.

"Imbiad, do not attack," Tirran repeated his earlier demand.

Glancing at Imbiad, Yu saw no hint of reassurance in the wizard's stony expression.

Yu lost sight of things, in general. With a sharp jerk, he bent forward and bowed deeply, using the momentum to throw the heavy hood of his cloak over his head. The fabric was stiff with frost. The thing had not dried since his arrival. With his head covered and his gaze fixed on the ground, Yu quickly wiped away the ice crystals forming around his beak and eyes. Straightening, he forced his eyes to stay open despite the biting wind. He watched as the shadows gradually condensed into discernible shapes — figures with depth and detail.

A ker led the way, striding purposefully up the stairs, his posture upright despite the wind lashing his cloak against his legs. He was followed by a beastkin and a hulking borman. The beastkin was of a feline kind and covered in thick fur like the borman, but much shorter and lean in stature. His posture was half-crouched, one paw occasionally brushing the ground for balance. The borman's bulk loomed behind him, towering even when hunched. He frame was massive, shoulders rolling with each laborious step, his pack a bulging mountain on his back. His huge arms cradled what appeared to be one — no, two figures wrapped tightly in heavy cloth; blankets, coats, tent fabric. Yu could not make out much more than the vague shape of their heads, almost entirely swallowed by all the layers. Small. Humanoid. Either unconscious or —

Yu strained his hearing, trying to catch a heartbeat, or even just the faintest sound of breathing. Instead, he heard — the ice. Tensing. Bracing. Tightening. Coiling to strike. A sudden shift in the air hit him like a wave, crashing into him with unseen menace, flooding and drowning him in dread. He staggered back, arms pressed against his chest, hearts hammering frantic and arrhythmic. Nothing had happened, nothing had visibly changed, nothing at all, no attack, no movement, not sound, yet everything around him was suffocating with malice.

His flickering gaze caught onto Estingar to his left. The ulbatan was already looking at him, watching him. Their eyes met, and Estingar gave the briefest, almost imperceptible nod. Look to the right. Yu turned and froze. Imbiad stood rigid, one hand raised with splayed fingers pushing against something unseen. His other hand rested against his chest, fist closed, thumb extended and pressed to his sternum. A similar image flashed through Yu's mind. He had seen, he had learned this at Ayenfora — a gesture of summoning. Magic.

Yu knew that Imbiad was a water elementer, but he had never felt his power, not like this. On the journey here, he had been sparing with his craft, conjuring little more than a thin veil of rain to block the worst of the storm, or a slick of ice when shelter was scarce. Unlike Fallem, he had never flaunted his abilities, which had been a constant source of friction between the two wizards. Where Fallem needed to be restrained with his shapeshifting, Imbiad had been meticulous, almost paranoid — too risky, he had said, too likely to draw the Shaira's attention.

But now, he did not hold back.

Even to Yu, untrained and oblivious to elemental control, the sensation was staggering — it was raw violence running through the ice underfoot. Every fragment of frost on the ground and in the air seemed to sharpen, like blades pushing against his skin. It was too much. Yu could not stop shaking. Ice was all around them. The whole mountain was Imbiad's weapon, and he had just put up arms.

The travellers felt it too — they had stopped in their tracks.

The ker remained motionless, his expression calm but his stance taut. The beastkin and the borman, on the other hand, looked around as bewildered as Yu had been. The beastkin's fur bristled and his tail lashed wildly as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. The borman repatedly adjusted his grip on his bundles. Their postures were coiled with readiness, yet they held their ground.

The brief pause gave Yu a chance to examine them more closely. All of them carried tents, backpacks and weapons bundled to their backs or strapped to their various belts. There were hatchets and hunting spears like those that Yu's own party had repeatedly used for support when walking or to test the treacherous ground. The ker's coat was frosted and stiff, the beastkins' furs sodden and soaked with melted snow. The storm had worn them down. The beastkin looked one gust away from collapsing.

And then there was another figure, standing in their backs.

The fourth who walked among them was the witch.

She stood behind the hulking borman, barely visible behind his wide frame. At first glance, she could have easily passed for a tairan or human woman. She had made efforts to disguise her nature, to conceal the discolouration of her nexus points and hide the witches' tell-tale resistance against the cold: Thick boots and gloves, a coat fastened high over her mouth and nose, and a heavy fur hood pulled low, shadowing her eyes. With all those layers, it was impossible to recognise any distinct features, or even to judge her build or age. Child or grown woman? Yu could not tell. But he knew, without a doubt, that she was a witch. By the layered rhythm pulsing through the air — not one heartbeat, but three. No — four.

His eyes caught on the fourth pulse, well hidden behind the borman. Yu took one step to the side and spotted a white bird perched on the witch's arm, its talons dug into the fabric of her coat. Its plumage was well concealed against the snow, but where its round eyes caught the orb light, they shone golden.

Now, with his new line of sight, Yu also saw the dark and rectangular thing in the witch's hand; a box, encased in a lattice of blackened metal, adorned with a fixed ring at the top like a handle. A cage, though not for the bird, which was much bigger? A lantern, unlit? An artefact?

Yu could not look away. He had never been this close to a witch. All those warnings clawed back into his mind, of curses that passed through the mountains, rivers and desert with no other purpose than to kill. Tales from the Snowtrail, of the Shaira who raided camps like a death wind, leaving behind tents rimed with ice and bodies frozen solid, their last breaths still hanging in the air like spectral trails. The endless accounts of Tria and all those who witnessed the repeated murder or abduction of those wizards who dared to travel to the Barnstream settlements.

Do not look too closely. Do not listen too intently. And above all, never let them speak their will.

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"A farer's greetings, guards of the guild." It was the ker who stepped forward and spoke first. His voice was rough, the edges rasped down by wind and exhaustion, yet he maintained a rigid formality. "I am called Elyndar Sylvren of the Avarune Ker. We are a travelling party of seven, descending the Varren after seeking oracle. We seek shelter, rest, and medical care for our wounded. We bid entry. Two of us carry passes, as we are officially registered —"

"I must postpone the greetings and your admittance, ker," Tirran interrupted. "The witch must leave the premises at once. She is neither permitted to reside here nor to access the Eastern Snowtrail through the guild pathway. You are equally refused entry and must leave with her, by association."

The party stirred.

"This is not a witch associated with a coven," the ker spoke faster now, though his composure did not falter. The words came sharp yet with a noticeable caution. They were small cracks on thin ice, where a singular syllable had the potential to shatter the whole construct if mishandled. "She claims tairan ancestry and has renounced any witch heritage or connection to others of the witchkind. To further prove our peaceful intentions, we approached long before the Witching Hour."

With a slow, deliberate motion, the witch pushed back her hood. The fabric resisted for a moment, frost-webbed and stiff, before giving way to reveal her face — a face pale and disconcertingly youthful, framed by a mass of dark hair, wind-torn but otherwise utterly normal. It gave Yu no relief. The Shaira were said to appear ageless, drawing the eye with beauty, false kindness and unnatural innocence. Wary of deception, Yu's gaze honed in on her eyes, seeking her markings, but with the distance and darkness, he did not recognise any obvious discolouration around them. Still, her eyes stood out. They did not catch the orb light like those of the ker and the beastkin. Instead, they appeared glacial and lucid, almost opaque. Her gaze swept across the guards, brushing against Yu's feathers like a creeping chill, probing for fractures where her presence might seep in. The white bird, perched on her arm, mirrored her movements, its golden eyes tracking the guards with the same eerie synchrony.

"Esteemed guards," she began, her voice low and thin, lacing itself into the frozen air. "I promise to —"

"Do not speak!" Imbiad's command tore through the tension. The words struck like a physical blow; an invisible force that slammed into Yu and threw him to the ground, his bones thrumming and his ears ringing with the impact. Clawing at the platform, he struggled to rise, talons scraping against the ice-slick surface. He did, but it was not over. Imbiad's presence had swelled, suffocating and primal, like the raw fury of an ocean storm coiled into wizard form. The air vibrated with horror and malevolence, with the tension of thunder contained and compressed to the point of bursting.

Yu's heartbeats were brought to heel, flayed to race the trembling rhythm. His chest tightened. Each breath clawed at his lungs, sharp and metallic, as if the wizard's rage had leeched the air from the darkness itself. It drove him to his knees again.

Like him, the beastkin dropped to all fours. In one moment, he threw off his backpack, in the next, he crouched with his spine arched and his ears flattened, eyes wide, pupils blown, claws extended, tail erect. A hiss broke from his throat, angry and primal. Beside him, the borman bellowed, a deep, guttural roar of challenge and alarm. The witch jerked back two paces, her free hand yanking towards the dark, reinforced lantern thing —

"Excuse us!" the ker shouted, cutting through the chaos. "These are instinctual reactions! We do not mean to offend!"

He had not moved, not even flinched. That calm seemed to bleed into the others, anchoring them in place. The borman shifted and secured his hold on the two bundled figures, pressing them higher against his chest. They hung as lifeless as before, swaddled beyond recognition. If they breathed at all, no mist rose from their covered faces, unlike the thick plumes from the borman and beastkin. The beastkin, breathing hard, forced himself upright. His claws retracted and his tail lowered. With a sharp shake, he shed the snow from his coat, then bent to retrieve his pack. He did not strap it on but left it upright at his feet. His movements remained taut, his posture wary, anxious.

Imbiad did not lower his hands. His voice cut through the frozen air again, low and deliberate, not a threat but a blade against the witch's throat. "Do not speak again, witch."

The outburst had been terrifying, but the reason behind it was far worse. Witches did not simply speak — they shaped reality, weaving incantations from mere words. Their proclamations were threads binding all that was natural, especially when they promised, declared, or willed. Even when they just spoke in Teh, an exchange with a witch was never casual; it was an outspoken waver against fate.

"Let us rest and treat our wounded for one night," the ker pressed forward. "She will remain in a secluded room of your choosing, warded, as you see fit, and away from the guild's common areas. We will ensure of this."

"Let us in," the borman growled, impatience grinding through his words. "I carry the injured."

He was taller than Tirran, imposing even for his own kind, but there was a weariness in his stance, the burdens of travel. He bore the heaviest load of supplies by far, and also the two unmoving figures bundled in his arms. His grunting grew harsher, his breath steaming in heavy, uneven bursts.

"Her promises carry no weight," Tirran replied. "Her origins and intentions do not matter. She must leave. Now."

The witch's eyes darted between Tirran and Imbiad. The white bird on her arm mimicked her movements, its golden eyes flaring from one guard to another just like hers, unblinking. Simultaneously, both their gazes shifted to the beastkin.

A low, rumbling growl rolled from his throat, building from a shiver to a snarl. His lips peeled back, revealing sharp teeth glistening with condensation, breath steaming through his fangs. "You let us die at your doorstep?"

Tirran's frantic eyes twisted and turned in their sockets, ever restless like angry insects trapped in a jar, smashing themselves against the glass in never-ending fits, before suddenly, they snapped still and fixed on the beastkin.

"I let you die," he repeated, drawing out the words like he was discerning each syllable.

Yu heard many, many things in them, but not a question.

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