Silence was his only reply, of course. Sikras knew Benjamin couldn’t hear him. Even if the gods did favor him, on no level would his words ever transcend to the twin gods’ afterlife. And yet he couldn’t stop talking.
Running his finger along the casket, Sikras frowned at the sight of dust. “I should have Saelihn send someone to clean these.”
“You should,” came a voice from the opening.
Hopefully his startled shriek sounded more manly than the echo in the mausoleum made it sound. After Sikras calmed himself, he straightened the collar of his vest. “Saelihn, hey, fancy meeting you here. Mausoleums are lovely this time of year, are they not?”
Darkness fell over her as she stepped inside, a lute in her hand. “I wanted to thank you for attending their funeral. Their second funeral,” she added pointedly. “I know it must’ve been difficult.”
“Not even remotely.”
“I see for all your progress that you’re still a compulsive liar.”
Sikras shrugged. “I guess old habits don’t die as easily as my loved ones.”
Saelihn frowned. “Your dark humor remains intact as well.”
“You know what they say.” Sikras faced the caskets as a stream of light through the doorway illuminated floating flecks of dust. “If you don’t laugh, you cry.”
Saelihn’s gaze dropped to the lute she carried, and her slender finger gave one string a pluck. The sound vibrated off the walls before fading into nothing. “Your loved ones are not all dead, you know. I’m still here.”
A sharp gasp, and Sikras’s head flinched back. Forgiveness? He closed his eyes, a weight lifting, as he smiled in the dark. “What can I say? I’m speechless.”
“The great Sikras Nikabod, stunned into silence?” Saelihn smirked. “There may be more to celebrate today than I thought.”
His grim chuckle echoed as he leaned over to give her a friendly nudge.
With a poised stance, Saelihn ran her fingers over Imri’s casket. “You get used to outliving your loved ones when you’re an elf who gallivants with humans, but she left a rather large hole in my heart.”
Sikras’s hands sank into his pockets as Saelihn traced the filigree on Imri’s casket. “I miss her too. It’s funny. She was out there for years, and I never fully knew where. Now I know exactly where she is, and she’s never felt farther away.”
Saelihn caught him in her gaze and smiled. “She would have liked your demon friend.”
“Imri liked everyone.” Looking down, Sikras grinned. “But, yeah. She’d have really liked Helspira. I trust she’s been reinitiated into the Red Sentinel?”
Saelihn nodded. “We’d be fools to lose her.”
Writhing in old discomfort, Sikras bristled. “And Rowan is okay with this?”
“It was his idea.”
A surge of mixed emotions flooded him, but Sikras kept them in check with a quiet sigh. “I’m surprised the banneret made it to the funeral, and not just because of his injuries.”
“He always respected Sentinel Champion Reese and Imri. Still, I understood his aggression toward you and Ben.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Gods, Sikras lived for the day when he didn’t have to touch that topic anymore. “Drained powers. Dead townsfolk. I’ve heard it all before.”
“Don’t be too hard on him. Banneret Rowan is a soldier through and through. He returned to the battlefield to find this for you, by the way.” Saelihn proffered the lute. “Ben’s heart may have beat to a bard’s tune, but he was a soldier, too. Sentinels earn their rest, and you denied Ben his right to it. I suspect Rowan was aggrieved by this, in addition to his jealousy. While you got to enjoy Ben’s company postmortem, Rowan did not receive the same gift of extra time with his daughter.”
Sikras accepted Benjamin’s lute and ran his thumb over one of the strings. “You’re an observant woman, Saelihn. I guess that’s why you’re queen.”
“Might I make one more observation?”
“Please.”
“I saw Sentinel Helspira sitting in Ben’s old room as I was headed to the mausoleum to find you.”
Sikras smirked. “Is that an observation or a statement?”
