I suddenly felt very small next to the incredible number of dead, I was not the only one who had lost someone over the past week. Mothers, fathers, children, lovers, friends. There was not one family left in Isrun who was untouched by this war.
I wasn’t a stupid person by any stretch of the word. Even though we were a little town in the Borderlands, thiswouldprovoke war, or at least cause the Warlord to double his efforts to quell the rebellion and bring the Keepers to heel. My stomach turned sour at the thought.
More death, more lives irrevocably changed. There will be thousands more graves like these before this is over.
Tal left long ago, quickly finding his mother’s and siblings’ graves and paying his respects before leaving me to contemplate in silence.
I walked slowly through the rows of graves, noticing some whole families were laid to rest together. Tears tracked down my face as I gazed at the hundreds of names burned into wood markers, vowing to commit each tomemory. I found names of people I had known my whole life, people whom I loved, whom I helped, babies I had helped bring into this world, adults I healed from sickness. My tears quickened and I did nothing to stop them as I gazed at each and every burial site.
Some, especially those closest to the hill, were unmarked—either those left alive couldn’t identify them, their bodies decayed or burned beyond identification, or they were part of the rebel army. Anger lit in my chest at the thought of those who attacked our village and tortured our people being laid to rest in the same place as their victims.
I turned from the unmarked graves, pushing my anger down to a simmer. There were two graves I was inadvertently searching for but had not yet found. As I trekked up the hill, I found two lone graves, both marked, and I dared to hope.
The first was simply marked “A Keeper.” There were no adornments upon his grave, and it was clear the earth was recently disturbed—the General’s Mages ensuring that the Librarian was, in fact, a Keeper. My anger boiled a bit again, thinking of them desecrating his eternal rest.
At least they reburied him.
The action was so at odds with what I knew their beliefs to be, and I took a small amount of comfort in their odd respect for the dead.
I bent down and ran my fingers over the rough wood.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I don’t know how you knew, but you saved me. I promise...” I didn’t know what to promise someone who was dead. “You seemed to love knowledge and books, almost as much as me. So, I promise to keep learning, keep searching for truth. I think you would’ve liked that.” The wind picked up at that moment, blowing the curls that fell loose from my bun across my face and into my eyes. I inhaled deeply, the smell of spring rain and growth heavy on the breeze. It felt . . . hopeful.
I supposed spring was the season of rebirth, but it was oddly calming to feel that small kernel of hope after so much loss and strife.
My heart pattered wildly in my chest and my hands started to sweat as I approached the last grave, the one directly at the top of the hill. From here I could see for what felt like miles, especially on a clear day like today. I turned in a slow circle, taking in the landscape from this vantage point—from my cottage and the woods to the west, to the small speck of the next village over to the east, and endless pastures to the north and south, it was abeautiful spot. The grass was just starting to poke through the hard earth, random wildflowers sprouting through to reach the sun.
I took a few more minutes to look around, delaying the inevitable, before I turned my eyes to the marker.
“Holt” was burned into the wood stake, the lettering more careful and neat than the others I had seen. Under the first inscription, I saw a second, which caused tears to fall from my eyes in earnest.
“A Father.”
My tears clouded my vision as I shakily traced the words with my hand. As soon as I reached the last letter, it was like something inside me broke, and my body shook with noisy gut-wrenching sobs. I collapsed to my hands and knees over Holt’s grave, letting the grief, rage, and love pour through me.
He wasgone.
I sobbed for what I lost, for the time we lost together, for the future he would never see, the grandkids he would never get to hold and love.
I sobbed until I had no tears left and my body was sore and achy from the torrent of grief that wrenched through it.
After what felt like years, I pushed myself up until I was sitting on my heels and dashed the tears away from my eyes with the sleeves of my tunic. Snot was running down my face, and I used the hem of my tunic to blow it away.
It was disgusting, but this tunic was already destined for the burn pile once I could get new clothes from my house.
“Who was he?” a deep voice sounded from behind me, causing me to scream and scramble from my spot on the ground. I whirled to face the intruder, only to be met with the unsettling green eyes of the General. He looked as tired as I felt, worn out from the last few days of work and battle. I wondered if he had lost anyone.
Of course he did, idiot. Some of the Mages he brought with him died, you saw their graves.
The General gazed at me expectantly, and I realized I hadn’t yet answered his question.
“My . . .” I paused, hesitant on what to say. “My father,” I whispered, catching the brief expression of pain that flitted across the General’s face.
“I’m sorry, Faylinn. It’s not enough, but I don’t know what else to say.”
I nodded my head. “Yeah. Death is weird that way.”
We were silent for a moment before he awkwardly patted my shoulder before shoving his hands back in his pockets, like he didn’t know what to do with them, or me.
