The narrow, lined face that now hangs with running rivers of red in a lonely room just outside the reach of one young, naive girl, did not always look this way. Once it was smoother, fuller, though always sharp, pointed in whatever direction he turned.

And Abe Stirforge always had his head turned in the direction of the wind.

Not the true wind, the wind Prince Feuilles might pick out in the atmosphere; no this is a different wind, one forged not in gusts and gales, but tongues and glances. It's wind that blows bodies into dust and men into kings.

He learned the tools of the wind at a young age.

It's a careful art, the folding of a dinner napkin. It takes a certain precision, a clinical eye. A different fold for a different rank, a different fabric quality for each different species of man. Then there is the correct bearing of platters, the crisp smoothness of the uniform, the pleasant blankness of his expression. These are the tools of daylight.

Twilight tools are something else entirely. They first gave poison to the rats and he sat in their minds, feeling the slow damage like a second skin, learning how long each took. Then he learned the subtle sleight of a knife, the way to hold an acrid blade beneath the sleeve and stand, a ghost of manners and class, waiting to blow a gust.

Halften was not always an arbiter of peace; and so the crown posted him at Bristmarks, where he could learn the names and faces of all the entering pieces on the board of kings.

It had been a scandal when the Solveig prince went there instead of Fairfelles, the academy of his home country. But it was said the young man was brash and headstrong, and with him went the cream of young Solveig society, descending upon the lonely hills of Keesark, and Abe followed in their shadow, just as planned.

It was the short Solveig nobleman who disrupted his post.

A proffered apple started it, offered without much thought, as if it was an everyday occurrence for a lord to share food with a servant.

Abe didn't take it of course, but he remembered it.

The Halften crown told him not to interfere, no matter what. Abe was to be their eyes, concealed and unseen. A ghost in the wings. The particular companion of the crown prince of Solveig should not pay attention to a ghost. Abe learned to feign blindness and deafness when he was offered food.

Not that it stopped the man.

So months later, when Abe spied the crown prince set out with that same, strange man, Abe did as he was told.

He followed them.

His bird, flitting tree to tree, caught snippets of their conversation as they went; it was some kind of quarrel, the crown prince nursing some kind of bruised jealousy over the ascendant Chieftainess of Roften.

And then all hell broke loose.

Abe didn't need the bird to hear the first shout, nor did he need it to smell the blood. He caught, through its beady eyes, the crimson ruin of a clearing, of a man, hunched over, suddenly reaching out.

And then the screaming started.

It was like a flash when he laid his own eyes on the scene, like a light flickering on in a window, and all the lessons he learned, all the skills he carefully cultivated, seemed to click in place. It was that young man, the one with the apple, but there was no smile on his face this time; he was kneeling, twitching, hands clutching his face, blood oozing between his fingers, and Olcay, the son of one of the minor Keesark lords, looming over him.

And Abe made his first choice.

The knife hit the Keesark lordling in the shoulder, puncturing flesh, severing tendons, rendering his arm limp, and the dark eyes in that blood-stained face turned, flickering onto Abe.

And then his other hand turned to Abe.

It was worse than any of the poisons, the rats. It felt like his veins were fighting to breach his skin, like his blood wanted to separate from his body, and he heard himself choke, heard himself sputter as something dark spurted out of him—

It took Olcay only a second longer to feel the poison.

Or, at least, that's what Abe assumed, because the Nature-caller grimaced, an ugly expression crinkling around wild eyes, and that grasping hand faltered, pawing at his shoulder. And Abe, wet with something he didn't want to think about, head spinning, vision, swimming, heart thundering, reached for a second knife—

And the man was gone.

"Oh Gods, oh Gods—" It was the companion, and Abe stumbled toward him. "Oh Gods, Rast, please—"

And that's when Abe saw the crown prince. He was prone, head laid in the other man's lap, and crimson with blood.

"You..." the man said, and Abe realized he was looking up at him, nose bloodied too, eyes bloodshot. "You—"

He halted, mouth moving wordlessly.

"Help me," he beseeched instead, hands cradling the prince's head. "Help me, please, help me."

Leave them behind, the Halften crown would have told him. You have been found out. Return before they can catch you.

He picked up the prince instead.

They heaved him, the companion holding him by his shoulders, Abe by his ankles, up the hill, moving quickly, but stumbling. Their skin began to stick and the flies descended. Each of the companion's pants of breath wavered at the end, a half-formed sob, and beneath them Abe could hear him mutter:

"He did it... he pulled... he Skilled—"

When they reached the top Abe could see someone sprinting toward them in the distance.

"'REN!" the man across from him shouted, his voice breaking. "'REN!"'

And then Abe was no longer invisible.

In the end, the apple was not the only thing that Ruben Jha offered Abe. Protection, for one, and then priority.

"This man needs assistance," the nobleman barked in the infirmary, pointing at Abe as people rushed around him.

His vision was filled with gauze and tape after that; and he felt hands on him, hands of people who meant to help, not to harm.

And Abe was glad he made sure to drop his knives in the forest.

"He can be trusted."

It was in ghostly twilight he next awoke, amidst the sound of low whispers.

"He drove off Olcay, he has knives—"

Ascendant Chieftainness Aren Dost was hovering over him when Abe opened his eyes. Pieces of her brown hair were tumbling out of her messy bun, dangling over him, as her eyes, dark gray in the dim light, peered at him.

"You're awake," she stated then and Abe nodded.

"How are you?" the other shadow had asked then, and Ruben's face was illuminated in moonlight as he too leaned over.

Strange as ever, Abe had thought. What nobleman asks a servant how they are doing?

"Ru said you fought Olcay," Dost interrupted then. "He said you had knives."

And Abe faltered at this, his gaze betraying him for a moment, flickering toward Ruben.

"'Ren is safe to tell," Ruben interjected, sitting down on the edge of the cot. "Abe punctured his shoulder with one, 'Ren, so Olcay is down an arm for now."

"A hunting knife is an interesting item for serving staff to have on him," Dost pressed.

"He's obviously not just serving staff, 'Ren."

This earned a sharp glance.

"And you want to trust him?"

"Well, we can't be choosy at the moment," Ruben dismissed. "Abe saved both me and Rast, the crown prince of Solveig, which is definitely not his master, exposing himself and putting himself in the way of a deranged madman who can Skill blood so I think—"

"We don't know that Olcay can do that—"

"Yes we do," Ruben persisted. "I felt it. He was tearing it out of me and Rast and Abe. And I don't think... 'Ren, the ground, I think— I saw— 'Ren, I saw bits of Sarah's shirt on the ground. I think—"

But his voice failed him.

"Come off it," Dost had whispered then. "He's friends with Sarah, I think he might even like her—"

"Has anyone seen her?"

"Well, I don't know. I was just running around on my own and then I saw you three on the hill, it's not like I've gone back since then and checked—"

"We've got to go stop him."

"Blasted skies, Ru," Dost hisses. "You just got walloped by a deranged lunatic who you say can Skill blood and you want to get up and run—"

"He only has a couple of hours on us; he's injured and friendless. We need to grab him now before that changes. You, me, Abe."

Ruben looked at Abe then and said: "Can you fight?"

And Abe nodded, though he wasn't sure why.

"I've got packs." Ruben pulls up bags from the floor, throwing them on the cot beside Abe's shins. "If we go now we can sneak past Graunt at the door—"

"You've been planning this?"

And Abe, friendless and now most likely country-less, sat up in his cot. There are, he decided then, worst ways to go. That breeze was blowing, and Abe could smell a storm on its wings. The Solveig nobleman was right; better to nip this in the bud now, before it grew into a strangling weed.

It took cajoling on Ruben's part, but the ascending Chieftainess finally relented. Even then, Abe got the impression that this was how their arguments usually ended. He had been right about the Solveig nobleman: he was strange.

They were packed, clad in traveling clothes, looking less like two highborns and a servant and more like three ruffians, grungy and equal. Ruben nodded to them both, his round face solemn.

It was time to set out, time to face the daunting task—

"And where the fuck do you think you're going?" a snide voice asked in the darkness and the three of them turned back.

"Rast," Ruben hissed. "What are you doing? Get back to bed, you moron—"

"You think you're going to go on this fucking holiday without me?" the crown prince snarled, hobbling over on his crutch. "Over my dead body."

The prince was still worse for the wear, having borne the brunt of Olcay's attack, and aside from the weakness related to blood loss, his usually handsome visage was marred by dark purple mottling.

Broken blood vessels. Abe deduced he was in a similar, though most likely less severe state.

"Rast, you can barely walk—"

The prince threw down the crutch.

"I can walk perfectly fine, thank you, so don't try to use that as an excuse. I am not being left behind."

And then he stood there, staring at the three of them.

"Well?" he demanded then, and he suddenly seemed to Abe as much a force of nature as his companion. "What are we waiting for? There's a Keesark bastard out there I'd like to hunt down and use for target practice."

A/N: Wow, this feels familiar, almost as if we read about this scene from a different perspective in the prologue.... 🙃

I know I said things about posting this early, but I'll level with you: it didn't happen because I spent the last five days going on interviews, working overtime, stress calling my mother (bless her wonderful heart), stress calling my professor (also bless her wonderful heart), stress calling my friend (she has no heart, which is why we're friends, but bless her anyway), collapsing under existential crises and my inability to make a decision, but then finally EMERGING OUT OF IT ALL VICTORIOUS. Guys, I'm going to a new job with people who seem pretty awesome? Please let me not be jinxing myself by saying this. It's been so long. Please.