A Job for the Desperate

A week later I was almost out of coin.

The room I'd been renting was no longer affordable. The meals had shrunk to bread and water. I'd spent two days wandering between farms looking for work, but the harvest season was thin and nobody needed an extra pair of hands.

Finally, an old farmer near the foothills offered me a job. Simple enough — take a sealed package to a homesteader at the base of the Alterac Mountains, a few hours north. Nothing illegal. Nothing suspicious. Just a delivery.

I took it without hesitation.

The walk was long and quiet. The terrain grew rougher as the hills gave way to steeper ground. The air turned colder. I kept my hand near my dagger out of habit, though the road was empty.

I was about halfway there when I heard a voice.

It came from somewhere to my left, low and calm, cutting through the wind like a blade.

"People don't disappear. They just move their shadows elsewhere."

I froze.

Those words. I'd heard them before — a lifetime ago, in a warm inn in Goldshire. The serving girl had said them about the old burned house. She'd meant them as a throwaway line, something poetic and vague.

But hearing them now, in this cold and empty place, from a voice I recognized…

I turned slowly.

He was standing on a rocky outcrop about twenty yards away. Dressed in dark, practical clothes. No mask this time. I could see his face. Sharp features, dark hair, eyes that missed nothing. He looked younger than I'd expected.

The man from Klaven's Tower.

"You've raised some eyebrows," he said. "And you've only been here two days."

I opened my mouth to answer, but he was already gone. One moment he was there, the next he wasn't. No sound. No dust. Just empty rock and wind.

I stood there for a long time, gripping the package, my heart hammering against my ribs.

He knew about the emblem. He knew I was here. He'd followed me, or known where I'd be.

And he'd chosen not to kill me.

Again.

I finished the delivery on shaking legs. The homesteader didn't ask why I looked pale. He just took the package, handed me a few coins, and closed the door.

I walked back to Southshore in a daze, the words still echoing in my skull.

"People don't disappear. They just move their shadows elsewhere."

What the hell have I stepped into?