-in the wind-

When Caellach kills Ismaire and Joshua is handed down the Sacred Twins of Jehanna, neither he nor the others mind when Saleh steps up to claim Excalibur.

He's a sage, after all--it's almost expected that he'd be able to use a sacred tome almost right away.

And he's Saleh.

The rumors about him have been mostly disproven by now; he cannot control the mountains like a trained dog, it was the traveler's fault she didn't ask him the quickest way out. He can't use any weapon at all, especially not the likes of Gleipnir or Nidhogg; while he does know basic self-defense and he was proficient in bows before he started his training as the sage of Caer Pelyn (rather late, somewhere around fourteen), he has no use for weapons anymore.

And he can't speak to animals--nor does he summon them to attack people. He has no idea who came up with that.

But there is one thing that nobody notices--the errant breeze ruffling his hair in the mountains; the sudden gust that whips sand up to blind his opponents; the light flurry of air that scatters his footprints or muffles his approach.

Most don't notice that the foreboding wind of Excalibur comes from any particular direction, but Saleh always knows where it comes from--the east.

-
He was the one who finished Valter off, taking over after Ephraim got stabbed and Eirika had to keep the last of the enemy soldiers at bay until Ephraim's elixir finished its work.

The green book sat in his hand like a promise, so he decided to use it instead of his Thunder tome; he might as well turn Valter's poor resistance to magic against him.

It started like a breeze, gaining momentum as Saleh concentrated and turning to vicious green blades that slashed the wyvern's wings to ribbons and cut through the knight's armor.

Valter fell from the sky in moments, still raging for blood and forcing his wyvern's path to Saleh for one last kill before his own death.

"I will not be butchered by some recluse from the mountains," he snarled over the wind blades, raising his spear and aiming it at Saleh's chest. "I am the Moonstone!"

Another wind blade silenced whatever he had to say next.

There would be no more of him now--the Moonstone had been killed by Excalibur.

-

Saleh's parents died in a bandit raid when he was thirteen; his father was killed and his mother gave up after a week of fighting a poisoned wound.

"I want my body burned," Lehina said to him. "I don't mind what you do after."

There was no wind on the day they burned her body.

So Saleh decided after the pyre burned down and her ashes were collected. He climbed to where the air was thin and cold, and he stood and waited for something.

By noon he was shivering so hard he could barely hold the ashes, but finally it came--a soft, lilting current.

With shallow breaths and eyes misted from cold, Saleh opened his unsteady hands and scattered her ashes into the eastern wind.

-
"Saleh?" Gerik asks him once they're on the road back to Renais. "What happened in Jehanna?"

"I used Excalibur," he answers. "Valter wasn't weak enough for any other magic; I decided not to risk it."

"There's never a real wind in Jehanna. When you used Excalibur, it came from behind you."

"The wind blades, Gerik. No one minds when I use Thunder on a sunny day."

"I couldn't reach you. I tried to tell you when we finished off Caellach, but--I got cut, too."

Saleh looks at Gerik, and there is a shallow gash on his left shoulder--razor-thin and too straight to be a sword cut.

"If you use Excalibur again and something goes wrong, we won't be able to help you."

"...This is a problem."