“If he got better, they’d ship him off to the war front again, and if he got worse, well, none of his family would have the chance to see him before...” I kicked a stone as I grumbled, hissed when it was more frozen into the ground than I thought. “He wanted to see them, you know. Tell them his story. Or a better version of it anyway, once he was healed up enough to feel some pride in himself again. Must've taken something huge already to admit wanting something against those expectations.” Robin trudged ahead of me, and I spied another stone. Decided better of it. “Pride’s as potent an injury as any I’ve seen. Drags you down heavier, heals slower, and we can make it worse only by thinking about it.”

  “How many times have you been injured by it?” returned Robin after a moment. And I didn't think I could answer that right now.

  From halfway down the hill road, a narrow dirt path had brought us high over the city, hugging the steep hillside tight, the view over the endless tapestry of rooftops enough to take every foggy cloud of breath away. A clearing unfurled, a gate long rusted open leading into the drystack walled cemetery. A spindly Clearlander woman tipped her wide black hat up as we approached, leaning back against the wall with a wistful fire sighing by the side. Nose that could double as an awl. She examined us with eyes as grey as clouds before a snowstorm, a cascade of hair down her shoulders as white as falling flurries, and I realised why this place felt so odd: not a speck of snow laid on the ground. The entire cemetery clear, the grass lush and verdant. Strange – I’d heard ours in Dreadfall was just the same. Everything clear here, except for one long pit, and a cloth sheet beside.

  She spoke like a wind chime made of forgotten memories. “Is that everyone? Still, more than the others got. Alright. Let’s give him his peace.” The gravedigger levered herself up from the wall and readjusted the sheet, squaring it off.

  The body outlined still looked strong. Still looked tall and solid and… like him. “It’s really him under there, huh,” I said, and got a general murmur of approval from her. “That sucks. The first time I thought he’d died, he sprang back up and kept fighting. Too much to hope he’d do it again, right?”

  “Humour is a common coping mechanism,” she acknowledged.

  “So why am I not coping?” I searched around to see where Robin went. Over by the corner, stripping berries and leaves or something from an overhanging branch. “You okay over there?” I called.

  “Oh, I inferred from how you were acting that this is your first real funeral.” How could he…? “So I guessed you won’t have brought sacraments.”

  “Sacraments?”

  He returned and splayed his hands. “Take some,” he offered. So I did. “But I thought it was strange it was your first. Didn’t you say you’d lost your brother too?”

  “In the, uh, the literal sense.” I stared down at the berries and leaves in my hands, not half as cold as I thought they’d be. Still expecting Omen to come over and cheerily ask what all the fuss was about. “Those town raids, way back when.”

  “Terrible, terrible,” said the gravedigger. “And when the ghastly news of the war came to the city, I feared for much of the same again. Perhaps we’re fortunate to have avoided it. Perhaps happenstance.” I looked her up and down: her plain skin, lack of horns, no claws… “Yes,” she said. “No one else would. All Foresters and only Foresters come to this place. And nary a soul visited to send any of the others off, not even the nurses, busy though they are – though they seemed happy to relay the bodies up to me.” She cast a disparaging hand at some fresher graves along the side wall. “What’s the difference, I ask. We all come from the earth and to the earth we all return. We’re lucky to get a few decades between, yet so many insist on filling theirs with divisions. Compassion and understanding is the only way to get anything meaningful out of it.” With a final adjustment, she seemed happy with the placement of the cloth. “Quentin,” she said, extending a hand. Robin shook it so so did I. We both gave our names. With a practised dignity, she slid everything into the depth of the pit, and Robin stood by its side and scattered his leaves and berries over the cloth, so I did the same. “I’ll give you space for your words. Did either of you know the passed?”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “I do,” I said. My throat tightened. “He’s a – a friend. I think.”

  I wanted to say more. I wanted to rip my overstuffed heart out and let it bleed out all the awful things until I could finally cope with feeling again. “You don’t have to talk if you wish. I only try to accommodate the customs.”

  “I want to. I just…” I swallowed hard but it didn’t help. “I’m holding it together so well right now. I don’t want to cry again. It’s all…”

  Robin came to my rescue again. “I didn’t know him,” he said in his marshmallow voice, though I heard it straining, “but that doesn’t make it any less of a tragedy. I think it’s easy to distance yourself from tragedy if you say you didn’t know the people involved, or you consider yourself different to them. Always people ask if they’re someone you knew, someone you cared for, or even someone you loved. My people called me naive but I believe we’re born with a love inside us capable of appreciating each and everyone else in the world, and from the day we’re born, people older than you seem to seek to divide you from everyone else, pit you against the others, tell you how different other people are from you and turn you against them. Tell you what differences are good and which aren’t. They do this for their own gain, so they can have influence and power and leadership over you. It’s only when you fight against that, that you can break free from the power they seek to wield over you through dividing you against everyone else. It’s only when you choose to keep loving those who you don’t know, or those who could be called different to you, that you can rebuild your unity with the world. While I didn’t know him, I was told once that each and every one of us is a miracle made of starlight, and every time a light fades out is a tragedy.”

  She leaned down to cast a shovel of soil across the cloth, and Robin did the same. I was already crying, my hand shaking on Robin’s shoulder to try to steady myself, so what the hells: “It’s more than a tragedy. It’s – it’s an act of barbaric and heartless cruelty. Omen was the most amazing person I’d ever known and he was everything to me. He gave me hope when I had none left of my own. He showed me how to be strong when I had no strength left to give. He constantly inspired me like so many other people to make better of myself. They all called him great when he was mighty and grinning and fearsome and standing tall. But I knew him when he wasn’t, both before and after he was sent to battle. And what was he, when he wasn’t mighty? He was much more than I think he realised. Better than all of us. Better than… him. Omen had a family. He had friends. He had me. But more than all that, he had himself. Had days, weeks, years ahead of him left to live. He’d been given a life and knew where it was gonna lead, and when it took a turn and became something new, he rebounded. He did what he always does. He tried his damned best with what he’d got. He pulled himself back from the edge. And then he got pushed by the worst person I’ve ever known, and when he got pushed he threw all those future years away. All those amazing things he could have been. All those days he could have been here. With me, with his people, and with whatever he would achieve.”

  I coughed, barely holding myself upright. “Miracles of starlight sounded way better. I wish I hadn’t said anything now.”

  Robin’s hand found mine. “I’m glad you said it. I’m sure Omen would be too.”

  I stood back as he helped her return the soil to the empty space, as they buried my friend. They were both much stronger than me. My hands found the wall and I stared out across the city rooftops. Somewhere down there was an apothecary closed for the day because of me. Somewhere down there was a hospital with a few more healed bodies because of me. In some of those houses, people were taking medicine containing the gripweed because of me. And in that castle high around the corner, there’d be another entry on the exam list because of me. I had air in my lungs and things I could do, and that was a gift I wasn’t going to waste anymore.

  By the time Robin came over to me, the brightness sat low on the distant mountains to the west. The gravedigger was heading home and I wished I could too. Not that I had a home to go to but – “Not yet,” said Robin. Tugging at my sleeve when I tried to leave. Pulling me back to him. “Look.” He pointed.

  “What? The fresher graves. What about it?”

  He looked at me in that way he did when he was three steps ahead of me figuring something out. “She said she was the only one who looked after the Foresters in this city. All Foresters come here. Count them.”

  “...Ten. Yeah. What’s the issue?”

  “Ten. How many people came through the hospital in the last couple of months?”

  “I dunno. At least a hundred? Two hundred? More?”

  “Exactly.” I looked again, and this time I really did look. “Ten didn’t make it. Only ten. Where do you think the rest are?” he asked, clearly knowing the answer.

  I sniffled hard. “Alive,” I whispered. “I imagined there’d be a whole field full of them. Of us. Whole fucking field packed full of us. But… only ten…”

  “Only ten,” he echoed. His hand felt warm and solid and real in mine. “And when you start feeling useless again, I want you to remember that. Only ten.”

  “Spirits… Do you think we helped?”

  He squeezed my hand. “I think we helped,” he said with a small, brave smile.