Chapter One Hundred Twenty-Three
Faylinn
It took four days to clear the hills of Deucena of evidence from the battle.
Bodies had to be moved and tagged, then identified.
The injured ushered into a makeshift healer’s tent to be triaged and helped accordingly.
Campsites set for those who wished to stay and help—bathing areas established while food and water were found.
Creation Magic pushed into the soil to restore the grass once more.
Funeral pyres lit and performed en masse.
Rohak, my mother, and I worked nonstop since the end of the battle, helping as many as we could in as little time as possible. The injured were my mother’s and my focus, using our Blood Magic and runes to help ease people’s passing into the ether or heal their wounds.
It was Isrun all over again.
But this time, I wasn’t alone.
My mother was here, gently touching my shoulder or shooing me to my bedroll to sleep when I’d been on my feet too long, woozy from blood loss.
Ellowyn and Torin were here, once they returned from Meru, providing support and bolstering emotions with their magic.
And Rohak was here, steadfast as ever, directing the recovery efforts and supporting me in ways I didn’t even know I needed. Some nights, the despair and grief built deep within my belly before it stuck in my chest, threatening to pull me under completely. Other nights, I needed to talk about what happened, reminisce about Ben and Asha, laugh about the years Ben and I spent together in Isrun. Still,other nights, I needed the silence, the stress and grief of the day battling with guilt for surviving relatively unscathed when others had not.
War wasn’t fair, and it didn’t discriminate, yet that thought didn’t make the passing of our friends any easier.
The funeral pyres were the worst—we burned the leftover bodies of the Samyrians and Solace’s sycophants first, after no one came to claim them. A pang of sadness swept through me at the thought that there wasno oneto come claim these people.
Yes, they had fought against us, killed our friends and families, blindly bought into and defended a dangerous ideology. But they were still people, still mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, daughters and sons.
They were Elyrians, and they had no one.
Suspiciously, Razia’s corpse was absent. Either he’d survived the battle and fled or was ferried back to Samyr.
Despite grumbles and protests from a select few survivors, the majority consensus was to build pyres for our fallen enemies just as we built pyres for our own unclaimed fallen. If we were to lead Elyria into a new age, hatred and grievances would have to be cast aside.
We were all one—all Elyrians—and we needed to act in a manner befitting that claim.
My breath hitched, and I nearly bit through my tongue when I helped hoist Sasori’s cold and stiff body onto the lowest rung of a stepped pyre. Her creamy white skin was even paler in death, the bloating of her corpse not enough to disguise her outward beauty. Yet, even in death, she clung to her anger.
I did cry, then, as I carefully rearranged her limbs, pressing her sword into tightly clenched hands.
The fact that no one from Samyr had claimed her—the sitting Lady of their territory—brought pity and rage in tandem. There was no denying that she made despicable choices in life, yet I wondered how much of a choice she really had.
We burned their bodies quickly, constructing tall and wide pyres to burn en masse at once. Their ashes floated along a gentle breeze, the cosmos seeming to sigh with our choice to honor them despite our differences.
The ceremonies for our own fallen were longer, more drawn out. Those who had known the dead in life shared small anecdotes or words of remembrance, and when there were no friends or family present, Rohak and I stepped in to deliver the same.
It was difficult to listen to hardened soldiers break down into sobs as they recounted the lives of their fallen brethren. Tears glistened on my cheeks and pooled in my eyes throughout it all, to the point that I thought they would never be dry again.
When I thought I couldn’t possibly cry anymore or any harder, it was time to send Asha and Ben’s physical forms onward.
My body shook so hard that my hands were completely unusable as I reached for Ben and Asha. With a firm yet gentle hand, Rohak pushed me back from their corpses and indicated for three other surviving soldiers to lift them onto a pyre wide enough that they could burn together.
A pained keen echoed in the night as Rohak gently clasped their hands together, joined in death just as they were in life.
