She gathers her few possessions and heads toward the forest, carrying memories of love that died not through natural causes but through ideological infection designed to destroy everything Malakor couldn't understand.
"We don't tell them," I say when she's gone.
"About any of it," Lyssa agrees. "The attack, the woman, none of it."
We stand together in the growing darkness, sharing conspiracy of mercy that could get us both killed if discovered. But some secrets are worth keeping, even when keeping them serves no strategic advantage.
"Do you think she'll survive?" Lyssa asks.
"Probably not." The honesty tastes bitter. "World doesn't have many safe places left for people who still believe love is worth preserving."
But she had chance. Brief moment of hope in landscape increasingly dominated by competing corruptions. Sometimes that's all mercy can accomplish—buying time for grief to find its own path toward whatever healing remains possible.
We dispose of the cursed waira's body in the ravine where Kaerith and Elira dump their educational materials. One morecorpse among many, indistinguishable from their systematic demonstrations of philosophical superiority.
The attack never happened. The woman never existed. Love never died beside our territory while we watched helpless to prevent another small tragedy in war between competing approaches to abandoning humanity.
Some lies preserve more truth than honesty ever could.
And sometimes mercy costs nothing more than agreement to forget what we've witnessed when forgetting serves no purpose except allowing hope to find somewhere else to take root.
