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Yu drew a breath he did not trust, drew another, and then obeyed. Not because he felt better. Not because the weight in his chest had lifted or the sharp, twisting suspicions in his gut had loosened. He obeyed because if he did not, he would collapse from freezing, exhaustion and starvation.

The stillness hit him first. As the massive door fell shut behind him, it locked out the Albweiss wilderness. The wind had torn at Yu's cloak and feathers since the moment he had stepped outside. But now, all the noise was reduced to a heavy hush, laced with fire smoke, boiled meat, and damp wool. The calm was so sudden and thick it felt false.

Yu lifted his arms to rub at his ears, and his eyes took over. The walkway was dimmer than he remembered. Only two orbs clung to the corners, their glow swallowed by two looming shadows.

The travellers were still there.

The borman sat hunched on a stone bench, his massive shoulders folded forward. In his arms he cradled the two still shapes, one about Yu's size and one smaller, both swaddled in towels so large they looked half swallowed. At first glance, Yu could only make out parts of their faces. The larger body, bare of fur or feathers, was unmistakably a tairan. He or she lay draped across the bormaan's lap at an angle, legs hanging off to one side. The smaller one, a beastkin of some kind, was pressed tight against his stomach. It seemed like he had not let go of them since he entered.

The krynn crouched before them, his long arms busy as he massaged the area around their chests with delicate, rhythmic presses.

Next to the them, a heap of discarded things sprawled across the stone bench: folded coats, rough tarps, and a pile of towels sodden with melted snow. On the floor, the rest of their baggage sagged open. There were battered satchels and packs, some of them unlatched as though someone had rummaged through them in haste.

Yu's gaze lifted.

Both the borman and the krynn were looking at him.

He was looking back at them.

Their bodies radiated expectation. Yu was equally anxious. He took way too long to register what they were doing, and even longer to realise that him watching them meant that they were also watching him.

It was awkward.

"Hello," Yu said at last, for lack of anything better. He regretted his choice instantly.

The borman stared, but then inclined his head, a slow and heavy gesture. The krynn just stared, but his long fingers never stopped working on the unconscious pair.

„I'm just … going inside," Yu said. "With you. Or after you. I mean — when you're ready. Then you go. When you're ready. Like Estingar told you." He was not even sure if Estingar had said he would come back. He hoped.

And then Yu folded himself against the outer edge of the bench, right where he stood. He sat stiff and straight, arms pinned tight to his sides, talons curled hard into the stone floor to suppress the shivers. He fixed his gaze to the ground directly before him and did not let it move.

The sudden warmth left him lightheaded. Throughout the whole day, he had darted in and out to fetch water, but those had been brief moments. Nothing like this. Nothing so exposed. Now, his legs could not stop shaking and his feathers itched all over from the thawing frost.

There was no time to rest. Yu's thoughts were a mess. All of this was a mess, and he had not even enough information to sort any of it. Still, he had to. He had to try, for dear life. So he collected his last thoughts and went from there.

Somewhere in that unebbing flood of dread, a single thought rose to the surface and held. Yu realised one thing:

It did not matter if he could trust any of them.

It did not matter if Imbiad had been sincere, if Fallem's concern covered a lie, or if Harrow had been playing both sides all along. It did not matter whether anyone in this escorting party bore him goodwill or served the syndicate. It changed nothing. Because it would not save him.

If they were liars, operating with some sinister intent, then Yu was as good as dead. To confide in the wrong person, in someone who worked under the wing of the syndicate, would be as good as cutting his own throat and handing them the knife. That much was obvious.

The other possibility – that they were entirely sincere – would destroy him all the same. If they were set on their path to rescue Fallem's brother, then Yu could not follow. They would seek out the Shaira and they would throw themselves into that death-trap of a mountain. No matter how desperately Yu longed to leave this infested guild, he would not join such a suicide mission.

Even if there were good people among them, even if one or two chose to help him in all earnestness, it would not matter. If he confided in someone who might abandon their own, honourable ambitions – be it the rescue mission or something else entirely - to protect him instead, it would change nothing. They could not withstand what was coming. They could never stand against the guard-raiders.

They simply could not.

He had seen the proof.

Imbiad's magic had been smothered in seconds.

The shaman had crushed his ice like it was nothing.

That was it.

That was what made all of this meaningless.

Meaningless.

Utterly meaningless. -

There was no safety in people. -

There was no safety in the escort party.

Not in Imbiad. Not in Fallem. Not in any of them.

The raider-guards had brought down a guild that was meant to be untouchable. They had overtaken a mountain bastion fortified against storms and witches and armies of orks. That alone proved them exceptionally strong, ruthlessly cunning, and more dangerous than any one man could ever hope to face.

Yu would die.

If he stayed, if he clung to the desperate hope that someone from the escort party might help him, he would die. No one could shield him against an omira assassin. No one could oppose the shaman – that thing, whatever she was – who could break magic with her presence alone. And if they fled with him, they would not be able to hide. Not from Estingar and Deltington, with their exceptional senses.

Which left him only one option.

Yu did not need to find the right people. What he needed was the right moment and the right excuse to leave. Quietly. Sensibly. Without bothering anyone. Without disturbing anyone else's plans or loyalties or ambitions. Yu had to slip away in such a way that no one, friend or foe, would have reason to suspect anything.

For the first time, Yu lifted his head.

What about this new group? Could they offer him a way out?

He looked sideways.

The krynn was still crouched over the unconscious pair, with his hands working across their chests. He moved slowly and with clumsy precision, as if he wanted to do it much faster and needed all his focus to pace himself. It was like he barely understood what he was doing, hesitant and stiff and afraid to make everything worse. Every so often, the krynn would glance up at the borman for silent confirmation, even though the borman clearly had nthing to add to Estingr's earlier instructions. For all his size and strength, he did nothing but hold the bodies close.

No. There was nothing to gain here. Not from them. Not with two of their companions unconscious and barely alive. Not with a witch in their midst. Not after Tirran had cut them off from the eastern Barnstream path. No, they were of no use. If anything, they were as much pinned down as Yu. What even was their plan now? What could they possibly do, burdened as they were? Where would they go, if Tirran would not let them continue to the settlements?

Yu's eyes dropped to the floor again.

This was where he needed to go. Back to the settlements. Back down the mountain and into proper civilisation, where there were real people and gates and a chance to send a warning.

There were no wizards to stop the raiders, not after the Shaira's last purge. There was only the Mausoleum healer. They never attacked him. Probably because he never fought for the settlements. Likewise, he never offered shelter during an attack.. He sometimes healed the wounded, if there were any, but only after the witches were long gone. And for his healing, he demanded more compensation than what some of the people could pay in one lifetime. Yu had heard that he even tricked people into giving him things without healing them in the end. And sometimes, people went into the Mausoleum, ready to pay and to get healed, but then they never came back out again.

It made Yu angry to think of the Mausoleum wizard. Even now. It always did. It made him mad.

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He swallowed all of it. This was not the time for such distractions.

Even if there was no wizard who would oppose the raiders, the tairan authorities could send messages if they only learned of the planned attack. Tria would know whom to contact. And once the settlements were secured, saved by Yu, she would take him back. She had to. If he begged her right. He would. Yu would beg and do whatever she wanted if it meant that he would never again have to set a talon outside of the estate, for the rest of his life until he died.

Yu's stomach twisted hard as the thought of the alternative, which was to continue the Snowtrail in the other direction. To turn westward into the unending white. A path of snow and ice, of no warmth and endless ridges with no safe descent, with no markers except the occasional cairn half-swallowed by all the rockslides and avalanches. It took months to reach the winding slopes down into the western Moors. Months. And that was only if you survived. If the witches or the orks or the avian beasts did not get you first.

Yu would not survive, even if it was just the cold. The last four weeks had been bad enough. The memories alone made his stomach clench again and the sickness climb up his throat.

He swallowed it down.

He could not do it. He could not go back there. He could not even think of that now.

But maybe he did not have to.

No matter the direction, Yu could not get away on his own. Not right now. Not yet. As things stood, he did not have the strength, or the skills, or the supplies to survive even a day out there alone, and he knew it. He would need someone capable to attach himself to, someone with a plan that led to safety. And for that to happen, Yu needed a reason, a good and non-suspicious one, to join them. Whoever that person was, they would decide where to go and how to get there.

Until then, Yu needed to be normal and harmless and compliant and likeable.

Oh god.

His life depended on his people skills.

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His life. Depended on his. People. Skills.

His people skills.

Yu hated people.

Why?

Why him?

Why the fuck was all of this happening to him?

He should not have to think like this. He should not have to make plans like this. He should not know these things, should not have to worry about every glance, every word, every smile or lack of one or silence. He should not notice these details or care what anyone else thought of him. He should be back at the estate where it was the other way around, where people catered to him and he could watch dumb humans doing dumb shit all day. He should be safe in his room with the mianid attendants fussing over the curtains, bringing him fresh linens and hot drinks and news of the the weather and all his favourite foods. He should not —

A sharp noise split the air.

The door to the common room scraped open.

Yu's head jerked up.

Deltington's pale, many-hued form slipped into the gap. "Good evening, travellers. I am Deltington, Estingar's better half, and also a guard. You may bring your companions in now."

Deltington let both of them pass. The borman gave a low grunt, as he ducked through the doorway with the two limp bodies still cradled in his arms. The krynn followed close behind, glancing over his shoulder as if seeking for last instructions.

Deltington, however, turned to Yu. "Yu, come help when you're ready, all right?"

Yu sat frozen, arms still pressed tight to his sides. "All right. Sure."

Yu did not move.

Deltington closed the door.

Yu still did not move.

He was not ready. He never would be. But he needed to be.

He told himself this over and over again. Get up. Get moving.

But one question had caught him. -

Why was he still alive? -

Was it because they had found no reason to kill him yet? Or because there was some reason not to?

It would be so easy to get rid of him, would it not? One slip on the trail, one fall from a lookout post. A witch could take him in the night. Or an ork. Or any other snow beast. No one would question it up here. Deaths happened all the time on these mountains. That was why guards existed in the first place.

Maybe that was their plan for the days ahead. Maybe for when all of the real travellers had moved on, or been made to leave, and there were no more witnesses. Maybe they were just waiting to confirm what Yu already knew well for himself: that he had no magical ability, nothing useful or dangerous to them.

Or maybe they already knew how useless he was and had decided to keep him anyway.

Reasons for that one came much too quickly.

For one, because killing everyone would raise suspicions eventually. Tria's suspicions, for example. They could think that she expected some sort of letter or report from him. She did not, but a normal shirka would. The raiders did not know how little she cared for Yu.

Second, because he was weak and stupid enough to do their menial work, all the dirty shit jobs. Cleaning, carrying, fetching.

Also, because they could use him as a front while they went about whatever they had. Regardless of his lack of skills and strength, Yu was one legitimate guild guard with perfectly legitimate papers to prove it.

Maybe it was all of these reasons.

Yu could only guess.

What else could he do?

What was the best thing for him to do now?

Keep his beak shut. Do his job. Pretend he very much liked being here. Pretend he was too stupid to notice anything odd.

Yes.

That was it.

That was the only way.

He needed to wait. Wait until there was a safe, unsuspicious way off this mountain. Maybe there would be a legitimate opportunity to quit. For that, he had to be prepared; packed, fed, alert. Until then, he better did what the raiders wanted of him, and find just the right measure of loyal and stupid to keep them satisfied.

Yu's eyes shifted toward the common room door. He was sharply aware of how far the scale had already tipped toward the outer edge of outrageously incompetent. If he wanted to survive, he would have to drag it back — back toward dependable. Back toward likeable.

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