Alone on the mountain path, Jaegar moved with purpose that bordered on obsession. The rain had diminished to a soft mist, but moisture clung to everything: to the leaves of the trees that crowded the narrow path, to his clothes, and to his face. His breath came in steady clouds of vapor despite the relative warmth of the season.
He had left in the dead of night, unable to bear another moment of waiting.
The internal conflict had grown unbearable—the rational part of his mind knowing that going was foolish, dangerous, and exactly what Angus wanted.
But the other part, the part that remembered his mother, the part that had grown up without her presence, could not resist the possibility that she might be present on the mountain.
The mountain rose before him, towering and ancient. He had been here several times over the years.
But nothing felt like this now.
Everything was different when you climbed toward an unknown fate.
