Lifara walked in the opposite direction from where Thaddeus had left the Undead Slayer, so he followed without complaint.
"Where are we going?" Thaddeus asked.
Lifara did not answer with words. She only raised one hand and rubbed her thumb against her index finger.
Thaddeus stared at the gesture for a beat, then understood.
Fortune. She meant to circle back and collect something.
His gaze dropped to the broken sword still in his hand. He had made that blade himself.
Radeon had insisted on it from the beginning. If Thaddeus wanted to become strong, then he first had to forge his own weapons and learn what a weapon truly was.
Weight. Balance. Temper. Edge. Weakness. A man who did not understand the thing in his hand had no right to entrust his life to it.
Still, for all the lessons Radeon had given, there was one question Thaddeus had worried like a dog at a bone.
How far did the path go?
He had asked it often enough that even Radeon's patience had finally thinned.
