Teor Pridesire

Teor returns to Dol-Makjar with Loza Blade after years away, coming from the far east after their latest work had ended in a series of smaller skirmishes. They reach the city with barely enough time to find Thjazi Fang’s execution and stand at the back of the crowd for his final moments.

What Teor sees does not sit easily with him. The trumpets and official celebration cannot hide the grief, remorse and confusion on other faces. Looking at a man he remembers as having done much for people beyond himself, Teor can only think that Thjazi deserved more.

The execution also makes Dol-Makjar itself feel unfamiliar. Teor knows war better than politics, but he recognises conflict when he sees it. As he walks toward the Fang home, he keeps asking what happened to the city of the Revolutionary Council, the Pariah Blades and the history he remembers.

At the farramh, Teor offers Halandil Fang his condolences and gives a simple account of his connection to the dead man: he and Thjazi served together in the Falconer’s Rebellion, and Teor remembers him as a good man.

The gathering returns other people from that history to him. Azune Nayar recognises Teor across the room, and the two old soldiers need little time to recover the familiarity of people who once fought in the same battles. When they later speak privately, Azune calls him an old friend and offers to take part in whatever Teor does next.

Teor’s own answer is that he has questions about nearly everything. He no longer recognises the banners, the people or the religious authority he finds in Dol-Makjar, and he wants to understand why Thjazi ended up on the gallows.

He also explains what the years away have looked like. Teor and Loza have stayed outside Dol-Makjar, helping others from the Torn Banner and taking contracts where they can. They have kept moving, but Teor admits that it has been hard to find one place to be.

That admission leads him to another reason he had thought about coming home: his younger brother, Talcydimir “Cyd” Pridesire. Teor hoped to see Cyd in the execution crowd. He has not, and Azune has not seen him either.

Teor’s question also alarms Azune, who knows that Cyd was supposed to have a role in the secret attempt to rescue Thjazi. Cyd’s whereabouts, and whether he ever reached his assigned part of the rescue, remain unknown, leaving Teor’s concern for his brother beside the larger question of where the escape plan failed.

Azune and Occtis Tachonis trace another missing part of that plan to Thimble, and Teor joins them when they leave the farramh to find her. As the three move through the city, Teor checks whether anyone is following them.

At the hidden rooms in the Tanners, his vigilance finds the first warning. While Occtis works the concealed entrance, Teor spots fresh blood beneath its hinge and silently directs Azune’s attention to it. Inside, the apartment has been violently ransacked.

Teor then catches the familiar scent of honeysuckle and an otherworldly light fading near a floor grate. He rushes toward it and finds Thimble unconscious below, changed by the years since he last saw her and close to death.

When her light begins to fail, Teor does not hesitate. The grate is too narrow for him to reach through safely, so he forces his claws into it, skins his knuckles and tears stone away with the obstruction. He then channels divine radiance into Thimble and restores her to consciousness.

The rescue brings yet another old face back into Teor’s life when Kattigan Vale appears at the hideout. Teor recognises him after roughly ten or fifteen years apart and greets him with immediate affection.

Teor came back to Dol-Makjar carrying the habits of a wandering soldier and questions about where he might belong. In the space of a single day, old comrades, a missing brother and a dying friend turn those questions into responsibilities he can no longer leave behind.