POV: Malia Moon
Nobody moves for a long, suspended moment, five of us frozen at the top of the ridge, staring down at a figure who should not still be here, who is clearly waiting for exactly this. The pale gray light of early morning does nothing to soften the wrongness of the scene below, a clearing that should be empty, holding someone who arranged to be found.
The stranger is tall, cloaked in dark gray that blends almost seamlessly with the pale morning light, face obscured beneath a low hood. They don't run. They don't reach for a weapon. They simply stand at the center of the clearing, utterly still, watching us the way a spider watches something wander too close to its web.
"Show yourself," Vargus calls out, voice carrying easily across the small distance separating us, weapon ra
