Turning the weapon over in his hands, Wenhan waited in the shadows of the small Hall. He could only guess that Sungjoo had been on the path to Helisarv, but upon his arrival in the small town, Wenhan had been suddenly unsure. There was no sign of the other Hand, no hint that he had come there instead of going to Reniserivan, but then Wenhan entered Kergisa's Hall. 

Her crystal was there, in Helisarv, and Wenhan knew that Sungjoo was searching for the dark thing. Even if he wasn't in Helisarv yet, he would have to come there, and so Wenhan relized that there was no better place to sit and wait for the man. 

He had spent an exhorbitant amount of his money for the long knife he now sharpened, running a whetstone down the blade in a well-practiced motion. The blade had been rough when Wenhan had bought it there in Helisarv, but the hours of passing the time had smoothed the edges until it gleamed in the low light, a deadly sharp edge on a blade just the length of Wenhan's forearm. Yes, it would serve its purpose well, as long as Sungjoo actually showed up.

Wenhan sat a fair distance away from the crystal now, the few acolytes that had served this Hall already bound and left in one of the storage rooms. He figured that they would either be found or free themselves, and he honestly didn't care which one, as long as they didn't try to interfere with his mission. In a backwoods place like this, there were no Hands, though the idea that Jinwoo might have been the Hand for this particular Hall had crossed his mind. If that were the case, he was still right; there were no Hands anymore.

He had, upon first arrival, approached the crystal to see if Kergisa would speak with him. The monstrous thing sat at the far end of the long hall, a plain room of cut logs instead of the carved stone faces of the Hall in Atherpefta, and even when he had bowed low before it, his knees on the floor and his forehead touching the smooth wooden surface, the crystal had stayed dormant. No speck of light showed, no hum of power, and Wenhan knew then that he was nothing to Kergisa. 

No longer was he her favored Hand, no longer would she exalt him or protect him. He was on his own from then on, and she had made that abundantly clear. He considered leaving Helisarv then, just dropping the whole chase after Sungjoo, but in the end he decided that it was, after all, Sungjoo who had brought Wenhan's reason for existence to an end. It was the former Hand's fault that Wenhan had fallen from favor; everything that had happened since could easily be laid at Sungjoo's feet.

And so Wenhan stayed, if only to exact his own personal revenge on the man.

Nearly three days passed as he sat in the Hall, waiting for Sungjoo to arrive. As he sat, honing the long knife once again, perfecting that wicked blade, he heard a low hum begin from the other side of the room. He stood quickly, sheathing the blade at his side; the dark crystal was glowing with a light that grew brighter with each moment. He had never seen it so brilliant, but as he drew closer, like a moth to the flame, he realized that he could see faces within it. And ju