Frostfire Ridge Echo

faust nodded once.
no fanfare. no flourish. only the quiet understanding between men who had walked the long road alone.
his gaze lingered, pale and firm, as if weighing the promise behind astier’s words—not just the willingness to climb, but the strength it took to name the climb at all. this was no dog howling for rank, no brute clawing for stature. this was a blade, long buried, revealing itself to be steel.
then you are a warrior, he said at last, the words flat but not unkind.
and in darukaal, that meant something. it meant fire and ice, famine and feast, blood sworn before blade.
he would see that astier had his place among the glacier’s heart, where men who did not chase glory but carried it unknowingly were finally seen.
your woman is welcome on the glacier.