"Life's thread is fragile, but the memory of it is everlasting, woven into fate's grand tapestry."
—Elucian Teaching
My father returned with our packs, the fabric dirty from debris but otherwise intact. Each pack on its own wasn't heavy, but carrying all four must have sapped the last of his energy, and he looked exhausted as he set them by the door of the back room.
"They've finished clearing the square," he said, accepting a fresh cup of tea from Gran and sitting on the bench next to my mother. "All the dead and wounded have been taken away. The funerals are scheduled for midnight."
"Tonight?" Alar asked. "Will it allow enough time for the families of the deceased to collect their loved ones and arrange for burial in their hometowns or villages?"
Gran shook her head, strands of her silver hair swaying with the movement. "We don't bury our dead, Alar. Their bodies are just the husks left behind, and their souls are free and surrounded by love in Dolis. We burn the bodies, turning them to ash." She reached for a jar of herbs and added a pinch to her tea. "The ashes are collected into urns. Some keep them in family shrines, others scatter them from Mount Spirit. Every family has its own tradition."
"I didn't know that," Alar said. "In Eluria, we bury our dead. But still, shouldn't they wait for the families to arrive?"
"They're most likely already on their way," my mother said. "The Guard would have notified them immediately. Besides, everyone watches the news, and the names of the dead were announced."
It was heartbreaking. I couldn't imagine the pain and shock of the parents whose children had been supposed to embark on the next stage of their lives but had instead perished in the cowardly Shedun attack.
It dawned on me how close I had been to meeting a similar fate twice already.
Why had I been spared?
Was it because fate had an important mission for me to fulfill in its grand tapestry? Or was it just random luck, and I shouldn't read anything into it?
Believing that I had been spared for a reason made the guilt of surviving while others hadn't a little less suffocating, but it still pressed down on me.
The television was still broadcasting updates. A somber-faced announcer appeared on screen. "We've just been informedof another casualty. Terris Windars succumbed to his injuries at the infirmary, bringing the total death toll to seven."
My heart clenched as they showed his picture. It was the heavyset man with the chest wound who had collapsed in front of me and Shovia, the one whose blood was still on my clothes.
"We tried to save him." I exchanged sorrowful looks with Shovia. "I was sure he would make it."
"You did everything you could," Alar said, but the frown that accompanied his words of comfort gave me pause.
"What is it?" I asked. "You look bothered."
Alar hesitated, glancing at my father. "I saw Terris and another man working on the stage decorations moments before Chicha sounded the alarm. After we returned to the square, I joined the team that cleared the debris, and we helped free the other guy who had been trapped under the collapsed section. We looked for his partner but couldn't find him. Then I saw him when Kailin called me, and I wondered how he was walking around with a chest wound almost an hour after the explosion. I just find it suspicious."
"I told one of the guard commanders," Shovia said. "He said they would look into it."
"Maybe he got injured while moving debris," Codric suggested. "Maybe he made a wrong move and fell on a jutting piece of wood or something."
That didn't seem likely, but Alar was right about the timing of the wound. The guy couldn't have been hurt during the explosions and then just kept going until he'd collapsed next to Shovia and me.
"I know Terris." My father frowned. "He moved here not long after we did, when Kailin and her mother and I came to help run the apothecary."
"Did he have family in Skywatcher's Point?" Alar asked.
My father shrugged. "I'm not sure. Skywatcher's Point may seem small to you, but we have a population of nearly twenty thousand. That's a large town by Elucian standards. We don't all know each other's personal lives."
"If he only moved here recently, he must have family somewhere else," I said. "Someone should be notified."
The day's events pressed down on me. Seven people had died, dozens had been injured, and why?
Because the Shedun thought that dragons were evil demons?
Because they thought that Elucians were blasphemers who served those demons?
Because they wanted to kill our shaman and cause the downfall of our society?
