The bounty hunters did not question her words. All the evidence was there: throughout the buildings, logs dressed in clothes lay strewn about, and the walls certainly hadn't built themselves. The only thing they didn't get an answer to from the girl was how Berald and Lord Möllnar had died—whose signet ring had been found in a pool of blood. Daiya revealed only that they had killed the two men in self-defense, but she refused to share the details. Instead, she lied, claiming to remember nothing of what happened in the cave—at least from the moment Lord Möllnar had clearly intended to devour her, and terror had taken hold. Her first memory after that, she said, was that she and Milo were covered in blood from head to toe, and on the run.
It didn't seem like Tyra completely believed that part of the confession, but Daiya stubbornly stuck to her story. In exchange for the information, the woman shared a few things with the half-elf—though she wasn't obligated to do so.
As it turned out, the group was no ordinary band of bounty hunters. The six-member squad hailed from the people of Lord Nannéus, the king ruling in the Whiteglow Mountains. Nannéus had made sure that most of the Shadowed Lands were patrolled by his bounty hunters—likely because this way he always had access to fresh information, and a significant portion of the profits from bounty hunting flowed directly into his estate. Daiya silently noted that this king must be a very clever man.
Tyra also explained that what they had witnessed at the Möllnar Fortress were significant and troubling events, which needed to be reported to Lord Nannéus as soon as possible. For this reason, they were unable to take Daiya and Milo directly to the Onyx Valley. Yet they dared not entrust the captives to others, so they had no choice but to take them along to the Whiteglow Mountains.
Hearing this, a flicker of hope reignited in Daiya. As if Sylun Himself had willed it—she thought. It couldn't be mere chance that their captors planned to take them straight to the gateway leading toward the Uplands.
And so, they followed the small group without complaint. She did so because it aligned perfectly with their goal; Milo, because he simply lacked the ability to protest. Gert, however, wasn't so quiet—the stocky bounty hunter he shared a horse with kept trying to keep him calm with regular cuffs to the back of the head. No one was particularly surprised, as Gert was without a doubt headed for the gallows at the journey's end.
Tyra was a sharp woman, and it didn't take her long to notice that something was off with Milo. At first, she may have believed the boy was simple, but eventually it became clear that something else was at play. Her first thought was that he might be a golem, like the ones they'd seen in the fortress, but in that case, Daiya would have had to be controlling him—which the girl obviously lacked the skill to do. Later, she noticed that the boy kept searching for Daiya with his gaze, and at times, he even seemed to smile. That was unusual for golems—just as Milo's icy cold body was, which the bounty hunter riding behind him regularly complained about. So regularly, in fact, that Tyra eventually had to take "the creature"—as she referred to him in her mind—onto her own horse.
During one of their rest stops, Tyra approached the young priestess. She made sure no one else could hear before she asked:
"Tell me… is the boy dead?"
Daiya's look spoke more than a thousand words.
"I don't understand," the bounty hunter shook her head. "I've heard of spells that bring someone back for a single day, but we've been on the road far longer than that, and to me, it doesn't seem like your friend wants to return to the earth. I'm also sure he's not a golem… but then what is he?"
Daiya idly flicked a short blade of grass with her finger before answering. "The truth is… I don't exactly know," she admitted. "But I'd like him to be how he used to be. A little more… alive," she finished.
"Is that why you ran away from your village?" the woman asked curiously. "And what kind of treasure did you steal? I wouldn't be surprised if it were something tied to necromancy."
"I already told you—I didn't steal anything!" Daiya snapped. "And as you well know, Milo was killed by our villagers while we were escaping. As for why he listens to me… I actually have no idea."
"I see," Tyra nodded after a moment's thought. "But if everything is the way you say, then why is your father searching for you? He promised an entire bucket of onyx-bloom extract for your return. That's the most potent poison in the Shadowed Lands—a single vial is worth a fortune."
Daiya smiled bitterly. So her father was trying to buy her back with the very potion he had brewed himself. How ironic.
"He wants me back because he's a lunatic," she finally declared. "And he wants me never, ever to leave the village again—just because he had one imaginative dream in his youth. Is that explanation enough?"
"I suppose," the bounty hunter shrugged. "It's not my job to care, just to bring you back. But if, perhaps…"
"If what?"
"If you manage to spark Lord Nannéus's interest—by introducing him to the boy."
Daiya looked up from the grass, curiosity stirring in her. "And how would that benefit me?"
"Lord Nannéus has a friend. A necromancer. He'll be staying at the castle for the next few months. And since—unsurprisingly—he came to the Shadowed Lands to research immortality, it's possible that knowledge gained from examining a new kind of undying being could be more valuable to him than a bucket of poisonous flowers. And me? I don't particularly care how it ends, as long as I get paid," Tyra grinned at the girl.
"You're unbelievable," Daiya shook her head. "But at least you believe me now. How seriously would you take me if I told you that a god is guiding me toward the Whiteglow Mountains?"
"I'd believe that you believe it," the bounty hunter leader shrugged. "But I've seen too many horrors to entrust my fate to a god."
They sat in silence for a while. Daiya did not ask Tyra then—or later along the road—how she became the leader of a bounty hunter team made up of burly men, or what horrors she had endured that had robbed her of faith in the gods. That, she would only learn much, much later.
Days kept slipping by, and on horseback they were covering ground far faster than they ever could have on foot. Before long they crossed the White River—famous, in a curious twist, for water that ran almost pitch-black. The bounty hunters launched into a loud debate over the cause of its color, but after hours without agreement they let the matter drop. By the next moon-set they had ridden into high mountains carved with broad plateaus and treacherous passes. The hunters handed each prisoner a coat against the biting wind—though in Milo's case it was meant less for the boy and more to keep Tyra, who rode behind him, from freezing. Daiya was grateful all the same; just because Milo felt no pain didn't mean his fingers couldn't snap off in the cold.
"Elf," Tyra urged her horse alongside, "do you know why it's so bitter here in the under-mountains?"
Daiya shook her head.
"Some say the answer is above us—if only the sky would clear," Tyra gestured at the roiling gray ceiling. "Those who claim there is another layer to the world insist the Whiteglow Mountains lie beneath a shallow sea whose bed is made of shining glass-slate. Sunlight filtering through breaks white across the peaks, and the sea itself chills the vault overhead each winter… but that still does not explain why our Moon rises. They say the Moon is a gift from the gods."
Daiya mulled it over. She had never given much thought to why the Moon climbed and fell each night; it had always felt too fundamental to question. Yet the idea of celestial bodies circling above a world that supposedly had no true sky struck her as strange. Mountains beneath a sea sounded stranger still. The only fruit of the effort was a stubborn headache, so she abandoned the puzzle for the moment.
It took two more days to maneuver the horses up slick switchbacks to the fortress. She had never laid eyes on anything so vast: a sprawling stone monstrosity squatting gray among gray peaks, the summit nearly wreathed in unbroken mist from which ominous watch-towers thrust like fangs. And then she saw IT.
From afar the lift looked like a thin ladder reaching all the way to the roof of the heavens. However hard she stared, she could not make out its end. Red indicator lamps, driven by sorcery, blinked along its side, and when Daiya risked a brief question, her surly riding mate explained they marked the tunnel's stability: when the lights burned red, the upward passage was sealed; when they turned green, travelers might climb in safety. He added that few in the Shadowed Lands could afford such a journey to the Uplands.
Daiya let such unwelcome facts wash past her. The sight struck her as beautiful—almost unearthly—and on that spot she swore she would soon make Milo's dream come true. All that remained was to escape the bounty hunters.
Fortunately, thanks to Tyra, she already knew how.
***
Gert was hanged. His neck vertebra did not snap at once, and as his face grew ever bluer while he clawed in panic at the rope, the crowd roared its approval.