I was still standing in the square, watching the young man who had just told me that the Anver clan had been destroyed months ago. His words clung to my ears like a slow blade carving through my certainty.
"No one passed through it and made it out alive."
The sentence echoed in my head repeatedly until his voice began to fade beneath the noise of my thoughts. I saw the old man. I spoke to him. He handed me a drink. Gave me a map. He couldn't have been a hallucination.
I moved slowly, almost mechanically, walking away from the square without responding to the young man's persistent questions. I needed quiet. Solitude. Logic.
I slipped into a narrow alley and sat on a cold stone. I reviewed the details: the warmth of the drink. The texture of the paper. His voice when he spoke about Caster. Could he be a ghost? Or something else? Or maybe… someone of a kind I didn't yet understand? The possibilities didn't matter right now, but it was clear that what had happened wasn't ordinary.
I pulled the map from my coat. It was still there. Real. Tangible. The scent of aged leather clung to it. I wasn't losing my mind.
I refocused.
Caster.
The objective hadn't changed, but the method needed adjustment. I couldn't attack directly. Not yet.
I studied the map. The Ronz clan was surrounded by a chain of icy mountains, stretching like a natural ring around them. Dangerous, yes—but also an opportunity. Caster's abilities to manipulate ice and storms might be limited there. If he unleashed them on a wide scale, he'd endanger his own people.
That gave me an advantage.
I decided to send the shadows. My creatures. My ears and eyes in the dark.
I raised my hand slowly, and with an inaudible whisper, the first three shadows emerged from nothing, as if torn from the void before me. Soundless. Lightless. They darted across roads and mountains, heading toward Ronz.
"Observe. Do not engage." I commanded them silently, as they vanished into the icy crevices.
I would remain in this clan for a while. Watch. Gather information. Wait for what the shadows would relay.
Before night fully settled, I had already marked weak points on the map—hidden passages, guard movements, the extent of Caster's influence.
I set up a primitive camp at the edge of the village.
I spent the night thinking. Not only about the old man, but everything—Caster, the shadows, and the journey ahead.
The next day, I wandered among the villagers quietly. I observed the market, noted the dialects, asked in a hushed voice about any ties to the Ronz clan. I never mentioned Caster. Just "Ronz."
I found that some traders passed through there, but avoided lingering. "The land there is cold enough to kill," one of them said as he loaded sacks of potatoes onto a tired donkey. "And the people don't like outsiders."
I returned to my camp and began sketching a new version of the map. I had realized the original held coordinates likely decades old. I used symbols of my own—small circles here, dotted lines there. The shadows began to send pulses—brief visions, distorted, but enough.
I saw the central square of the Ronz clan. I saw elevated barracks made of dark wood. People in heavy garments, carrying weapons adorned with ice. And I saw someone... tall, hair white as snow, standing on a high balcony. I didn't need to be told who it was. It was Caster.
I felt something strange. The shadows hesitated as they neared him. One of them froze in place—then shattered into black dust.
He senses them.
I ordered the others to retreat.
The following night, I refined my plan of attack. Not a frontal assault. A cold infiltration. Silent. Through one of the icy mountain passes, where the magical current around the village weakened. That would be my entry point.
I needed the element of surprise.
At the same time, I thought about sowing chaos at the outskirts of the clan—spreading a rumor that a band of mercenaries was approaching. Or making my shadows appear openly in a distant location, to draw attention away.
Caster was clever, but his overconfidence was my way in.