The sealed orders took me to a staging ground north of Theramore.
Tents. Supply crates. The kind of temporary camp that looks like it could disappear overnight and leave no trace. A quartermaster checked my name against a list and pointed me toward a cluster of figures near a wagon.
"That's your squad. Captain Aldric. Try not to die before your first mission."
I walked over.
There were eight of them when I arrived. Nine, counting myself. A mix of backgrounds — some in uniform, some in the kind of worn leather that said they'd been doing this work long before the Alliance got involved. No one looked comfortable. No one looked surprised to see me.
A tall man with a graying beard and the bearing of someone who had given orders for most of his life stepped forward.
"Aldric," he said. "I'm captain of this unit. You're the replacement?"
"I'm here, aren't I?"
He studied me for a moment. Then he nodded, almost imperceptibly.
"We've got six confirmed operations in the next two weeks. All in Silithus. All dangerous. You'll learn everyone's name along the way."
He turned and walked back to the wagon without waiting for a response.
I found a patch of ground near the edge of the camp and sat down. The sun was setting over Theramore's walls, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. Somewhere south of here, the desert waited.
A young soldier walked past and dropped a plate of food next to me without a word.
I looked at it. Then at him.
He shrugged. "You look like you haven't eaten."
"I haven't."
"Figured." He sat down a few feet away, cross-legged, and started eating his own portion. "Name's Cael. I'm the scout. If you get lost in the desert, I'm the one who finds you."
"Wylde."
"I know." He grinned. "Quartermaster told us you were coming. Said you walked away from a job in Duskwood rather than beating up an old man for gold."
I didn't answer.
Cael took the silence in stride. "That's the kind of story that gets you respect around here. Most people here are running toward something. You walked away. That's different."
I ate my food and watched the sun go down.
The squad was quiet that night. No grand speeches. No introductions. Just nine people who would learn each other's names in the desert, where names mattered less than whether you could be trusted with a blade at your back.
I didn't sleep well.
But it wasn't the bad kind of restless.
It was the kind that comes before something begins.