Argents Lost - Summer Winds (part 3)
The former Ebon he’d met on the trail still hadn’t given him her name, but she’d told him enough to win enough wary trust for him to return to the outpost with her. The enterprise had been aided by a sudden ache that began somewhere deep inside his knee and a shift in the wind. He’d lived in Northrend long enough to know what those two things together heralded.
Stormclouds swept down onto K3 as they reached the inn, led by biting wind that stung his face and made his eyes water. The inn at K3 was decidedly worn, weather-beaten, but in good repair. The windows looked like they’d been replaced recently and the floors and tables in the common room were decidedly clean, though they still carried a timeworn, hard-used charm, battered and scuffed as they were. Its warmth and shelter—and the smell of venison stew and cider—were a welcome comfort after so narrowly dodging the storm.
The table his newfound companion led him toward was tucked into a shadowed corner and was already occupied by a figure tall enough that he guessed it must be another Kaldorei. The figure had both hands wrapped around a mug of something steaming, beringed—and there was something else, something he didn’t quite see until the figure lifted the mug to drink, a glint of silver.
His heart slammed into his throat and he stopped in his tracks. His companion put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently.
“She won’t harm you,” she said softly. “You have nothing to fear from her.”
“Yes,” she said. “But something tells me your face will strike her familiar.”
“It has nothing to do with your resemblance to Ildanan Sunstar.”
He swallowed bile, but started walking again. The figure—a woman, and unless he missed his guess, the woman called the Mistwraith—was looking at them now, argent eyes gleaming in the shadows of a drawn hood. He swallowed again as he carefully drew one of the chairs out from the table and sank into it, glancing back over his shoulder to see where his companion was going to sit—and found her gone.
“She’ll be getting you something bracing,” the hooded woman said. There was a faint rasp to her voice but the familiarity was unmistakable. He nearly swallowed his tongue.
“You’ll be needing it, Lord Kyvare.”
He rocked back, eyes widening. In the shadows of her hood, there was a flash of a smile, almost but not quite feral.
“Yes. I’m aware of who you are. I’m also aware of what you were taught.”
“I’m not certain the answer to your question matters overmuch, but if you really want an answer, I’ll give you one in exchange for an answer to a question of my own, first.” She leaned back and he could feel the weight of her gaze hanging heavy upon him. “Why are you, of all people, seeking them when you have a family and responsibilities that should preclude a mission like this—one, I might add, that has been forbidden by the organization that saw you bound to them? Of all the sorts seeking those lost, you were among the last I would have imagined to see here.”
“What of you?” he blurted. “Why are you two looking for them?”
“Because she is my mother,” she said. “And they are her family and I should think, with all that’s happened, I should owe her that much. And you?”
“Because I didn’t think anyone else was and I wasn’t about to ask my family to come unless—unless I knew.”
“Whatever goes into that gully doesn’t come out,” she said. “But they’re not dead.”
“No,” he confirmed. “No, they’re not.”
She fell silent. The former Ebon returned to the table, setting a mug slowly down in front of him as she looked between him and the hooded woman.
“Well,” she said dryly. “I see you’ve gotten started without me. I thought we agreed that you wouldn’t do that anymore.”
The hooded woman reached up to push back her hood, smiling up at the Ebon. “One time.”
“Near unmitigated disaster one time,” the Ebon said, seating herself. “And a lesson learned. What have you told him?”
“Likely no more than whatever you did to get him to come back with you.”
He coughed politely and wrapped his hands around the mug, letting the warmth bleed into his fingers. “My apologies, ladies, but I think we’ve missed a few things.”
“You already know who I am, Lord Kyvare, and I know who you are,” Mistwraith said, studying him. “Unless it’s not pleasantries you’re getting at.”
“I—well, it was, yes, but also no. How—how long have you been looking?”
“Long enough to know there are two sites of interest,” the Ebon said. “You stumbled across one. The other is a frozen waterfall and a river that don’t seem quite right.”
The mug between his hands shattered.
