3
The Eyrie
“You could have saved him.”
Rignar glanced briefly at Shamil’s stern, accusing visage before turning away, huddling into his cloak. “Leave it be, lad,” he muttered.
The three of them had spent the hours until nightfall climbing in silence, eventually finding a resting place at the foot of a stone ladder cut into a sheer cliff some fifty feet high, too high and too narrow to scale in darkness. Throughout the climb Shamil had kept to the rear, hoping the mage could feel his eyes boring into the back of his skull. Shamil had seen death before, including the deaths of friends, for the Doctrinate’s lessons held many dangers, but never had he witnessed a man casting his own life away, especially when such a waste could have been prevented.
“The pendant you carry has power,” Sham
