He set down his tool. Waited.
She had rehearsed this on the walk over. Scholarly interest. Historical context. A question about primary sources for the border conflict period. It would be easy. It would be convincing.
"Torunn," she said. "Your brother."
Brenneth turned back to his workbench. His hands found a piece of leather and began working it, the motion automatic. "Why do you want to know about my brother?"
The truth. She could tell the truth. She could say Corvin's name and explain what had brought her here and trust this orc to understand.
She was not ready.
"I study the border conflicts," she said instead. "The official records are incomplete. Your brother died at Thornfield Pass. I want to understand what actually happened there."
Brenneth's hands stilled on the leather. He looked at her for a long moment, his amber eyes unreadable.
"You are asking for a different kind of record."
"Yes."
"Paper will not give you what you want."
"I know."
He set down the hide. Wiped his hands on the heavy apron that covered his chest.
"The battle was a slaughter," Brenneth continued. "Both sides. The Valdaran account calls it a 'minor engagement,' but there was nothing minor about it. Snow came in wrong. Visibility failed. Orcs and humans killing each other half-blind, unable to retreat, unable to see who they were fighting."
His hands had found the leather again, working it without looking.
"Torunn's body was recovered three days after the storm broke. He had taken a spear through the chest. We buried him in the high pass, where he could watch the border he died defending."
Verity's throat was tight. "In the high pass."
"That is where we put our warriors. On the land they protected. Their bones become the mountain. Their names become the wind."
Not in ledgers. Not in census reports. Not in the three paragraphs the Valdaran military had used to close Corvin's file.
In the mountain itself.
"The Valdaran dead," she heard herself say. "What happened to them?"
Brenneth's hands stilled. "We do not count the enemy dead. That is for their own people."
"But they were there. In the pass. After the battle."
"Some." His voice had turned careful. "Some we saw. The storm buried others. By the time the snow melted, the Valdaran patrols had retrieved what they could reach."
What they could reach. The words hooked into something in her chest and pulled.
"And the ones they couldn't reach?"
"The mountain keeps them." Brenneth looked at her steadily. "We do not disturb the dead. They stay where they fell."
Verity's vision blurred. She blinked hard, forced it clear.
Corvin's body was never recovered. The official report had used passive language—circumstances prevented retrieval, remains could not be located—but she had read between those lines a thousand times. They had looked. They had not found him. They had stopped looking.
He was still there. Somewhere in that pass. The mountain keeping him.
