Warder — Catherine Miller

Wife.Daughter.Warder.There was a shift in the mountain. Where once creatures would ascend to the peak for the winter, now they hunted. With venom and claw, warders fell.Others of her kind had settled. Wives, mothers, they flourished in their freedoms. While Gwynn struggled with the worry, the strain that came from lonely nights without news of her husband's wellbeing.A bargain. An entreaty. To train as a companion when the missions grew longer. To no longer be left behind.And if she should find some remnant of her kind, a hint of their history, then was that so very wrong? Of a people that were not merely slaves, but explorers. Whose ships traversed the stars themselves.She would be like them. Would see the world long denied to her, her husband by her side. Because the mountain was theirs.Wasn't it?-x-He tried to open his eyes to look at his hands. Failed.Didn't matter anyway, as there was yet more cloth covering his eyes. A waste. He was dead anyway. A corpse that still had the misfortune of drawing in breath. Of possessing a heart that still beat.He drew in a ragged breath. It should have hurt. But it must have been another potion. The one pulling him toward the dark. Promised rest and healing if he would succumb. There was no healing from this. No mending. Honeyed words from those who had never burned. He opened his mouth.A cry. A scream. Yet he made no sound. Couldn't. Not to tell. Not to warn. Of what had come to their mountain. What he'd seen. Before...Well. Before.