"Qian?"
The red-haired girl looked at him without saying a word, only shaking her head; then she looked up and Brand had already seen something in those blazing amber eyes. He turned his head and sure enough, an uninvited guest had appeared on the second-floor corridor of the hall at some point.
Or perhaps it had always been there, he just hadn't noticed it before.
A tall skeleton holding a war axe, its entire body shrouded in a worn brass armor, its wind-leaking jaw slightly open, and the crack on its skull seemed to silently mock. Kabais looked down at him, the dark yellow flames in its eye sockets flickering slightly, it had recognized the young man it had seen from afar in the breakout battle at Ridenburg.
"Viscount Tingsgang?"
Kabais said in a hoarse, wind-leaked voice, "Since we parted at Ridenburg, have you been well?"
"Ma-da-ra." Brand ground out the words through clenched teeth.
