"He remembers everyone," she said quietly.
"Everyone," Brenneth agreed.
She finished her tea. The cup was empty, but she held it anyway, needing something to do with her hands.
"Thornfield Pass," she said. "Where is it? How far?"
He studied her face. "Why?"
"Because—" She stopped. Swallowed. "Because my brother is there. Somewhere. And I have been grieving him for four years with nothing to hold. No place to stand. No—" Her voice cracked. "No grave to visit."
Brenneth was quiet for a long time.
"You should speak with Targesh," he said finally.
"He doesn't know why I'm here. Not really."
"Then tell him." Brenneth rose from the crate, collecting both their cups. "Whatever you are looking for, you will not find it by searching alone. And this territory—" He gestured beyond thetannery walls, toward the peaks that ringed Northwatch. "This territory does not forgive those who wander in unprepared."
She stood. Her legs felt steadier now, though the weight in her chest had not lifted.
"Thank you," she said. "For telling me about Torunn."
"Thank you for asking." Brenneth returned to his workbench, hands finding the leather again.
She walked back through the courtyard in the thickening morning light, past warriors and craftsmen and the ordinary bustle of a settlement finding its daily rhythm. No one stared at her now. The news of the warchief's archivist had been absorbed, filed away, overtaken by newer concerns.
She did not go to the archives.
She went to her quarters instead, closed the door behind her, and sat on the edge of her narrow bed.
She had come here looking for paper. For records. For the kind of evidence that could be catalogued and cross-referenced and annotated into certainty.
The orcs did not keep their dead in paper. They kept them in stone.
If she wanted to find her brother—really find him, not just his name in a margin—she would have to go to the place where he fell. Stand on the ground that held him. See the mountain that had become his grave.
She could not do it alone.
She was going to have to tell Targesh why she was really here.
Chapter 18
Verity found him that afternoon in the council chamber.
The door stood open. She stopped in the threshold.
Targesh sat at the head of a long table scarred with use, his attention fixed on a map weighted at the corners with stones. Kethrak stood to his left, finger tracing a route along what looked like the southern border. Neither man had noticed her yet.
"—third report of movement in that sector," Kethrak was saying. "Could be bandits. Could be Valdaran scouts testing the boundary."
"Send Ralvar's patrol." Targesh's voice was flat, decisive. "Tell him eyes only. No engagement unless provoked."
"And if they are provoked?"
"Then I trust his judgment." Targesh looked up from the map, and his gaze found her in the doorway. "We are finished, Kethrak."
Kethrak turned, saw her, and his mouth twitched. "Warchief."
