For a brief moment, Alpheo stood in silence, his thoughts circling the unexpected notion Asag had just presented.
He cast a long, measured look at his friend, surprised, perhaps even humbled. He had never taken Asag for a dullard, but neither had he expected such shrewd insight.
And now, in hindsight, he realized that the same man who had held the crumbling walls of Aracina for a month with nothing but sheer resolve and iron grit, could hardly be underestimated.
Asag had struck upon something Alpheo himself had missed.
Until now, he had assumed that merchants would flock in droves at the chance to lease Yarzat's land, eager to reap profit from vineyards and olive groves. But viewed through the lens of an outsider, someone who did not share Alpheo's urgency or idealism, his plan had holes.
And through those holes, cold water was already beginning to seep.
