“I can’t believe she was carrying their remains in her pack this entire time,” Glade projected to Bragden as he watched Riya and Kedryn go about digging the small grave. They had both situated themselves within the edge of the silverthread’s life giving aura. Naturally, he had placed himself between the Kid and the sapling. He wasn’t taking any chances.

Glade didn’t speak aloud for fear of interrupting the solemnity of the moment, but the thought that Riya had kept the shadow elves remains close this entire time was… Well, he didn’t know whether to be impressed or appalled.

“What did ye expect her to do with ‘em?” Bragden sent back. “Dump ‘em in the nearest ravine and call it good? Elves treat the death o’ their own with reverence and respect, which is one o’ the only good things I can rightly say about the bloody pointy eared tree lovers.”

Glade watched as Riya carefully extracted a plant from the area where they had designated to place the remains. A smile graced his lips as he realized she was harvesting one of the rare herbs she had wanted, likely justifying the fact that she had to dig a grave anyway and would rather put the plant to use rather than needlessly destroy it.

Judging by the smile on her face, it must have been something good. Knowing he wasn’t going to get much information; Glade went ahead and used his aura sense skill.

You have discovered a Whispering Nettle. Increase the skill Aura Sight to learn more.

Uses: Unknown

Rarity: Unknown

Value: Unknown

“Have you ever heard of a Whispering Nettle?” Glade asked Bragden.

“What in the time we’ve known each other made you believe I would know anything ‘bout slagging plants?” Bragden snorted. “I be a respectable enchanter lad, not some smelly alchemist recluse that hasn’t bathed in a year.”

Glade smiled to himself as he gave up trying to figure out what Riya wanted with the plant. He wasn’t surprised that Bragden had responded like he had. Professional pride was likely a universal truth throughout the universe. Still, he was curious what an alchemist could do. The health and mana potions they had found were supposedly high quality and extremely hard to come by. The idea of having someone who could consistently make potions like that would go a long way to alleviate emergency response measures. After all, Riya couldn’t be everywhere.

He watched Riya carefully wrap the thistle into a damp cloth, roots and all, before she returned to helping Kedryn dig out a small grave. They didn’t have any tools to speak of, so they used one of the gnollish daggers and their hands.

Then Riya began to hum.

It wasn’t a melody that Glade was familiar with. The group had shared a few songs with each other over the past few days. More specifically, Kedryn had shared some music from Earth after Riya and Croon had shared some of their people’s more popular folk music.

Riya had shared a fun little ditty called, ‘Faelings Flight,’ a song about children and fairies chasing fireflies at dusk.

Croon had immediately countered with a dwarven drinking jig called, ‘Bruer’s Song.’ While the Verser couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, everyone laughed as he roared out the story of a dwarf’s misadventures in love and ale.

Kedryn had sung ‘Sweet Carolyn,’ and had the dwarves roaring the bom, bom, bom by the second verse. Glade hadn’t even known Kedryn could sing, let alone that he knew some of the older classics.

Stolen novel; please report.

Riya had then shared a sweet song about finding love under a moon. Kedryn then sang ‘One,’ by U2. Croon just sang another drinking song.

It had gone on for over an hour, each sharing songs that made them laugh, cry, and in Croon’s case, throw heavy objects at him.

But the melody Riya hummed to herself as she dug the grave wasn’t anything he had heard before. It was as haunting as it was sad. Music that whispered so loud that the world itself went still.

“This here be where I need to leave ye,” Bragden replied, his voice already thick with emotion. “If’n ye knew what was good for ye, you’d leave as well. I’ve heard elves sing the Sisters Twilight Sigh once. That was enough.”

Before Glade could ask Bragden what he had meant, the surly dwarf severed the link from his end, something he hadn’t known the surly dwarf could do.

Baffled, Glade turned back to Riya. She hummed two full rounds of the song before Kedryn picked it up, adding his tenor to Riya’s soprano. There were plenty of mistakes, areas where Kedryn either forgot his part or simply didn’t know what to do. But somehow, that made the music more real, blended into a perfectly imperfect melody that added to the moment instead of taking away from it.

When the hole was deep enough, Riya gently began the process of moving the remains from her pack and into the soft ground one bone at a time. Then she began to sing.

“In twilight's tender sigh, we witness the moons ascend,

Their melancholic radiance, a bittersweet amends.

They rise and fall in graceful arcs, a dance of fading light,

A silent ode to memories strong, as we stand watch throughout the night.”

Riya sang in her native language as she put the elves to rest. The words alone made his eyes burn as he fought to keep the tears from forming. Emotions he had thought long buried clawed their way to the surface as Kedryn continued to carry the counterpoint.

“In the passage of the moons, we find the tears that we have borne,

Their pale glow speaks of memories, both cherished and forlorn

The sister moons, they witness all as they come and go,

Deeds that will be remembered, within their eternal flow.”

Glade blinked away the tears as fast as he could. It had been weeks since he had last cried. Since he had to live with the memories.

Blonde hair flowing in the wind.

A laugh as sweet as birdsong.

A phone call in the middle of the night.

The smell of disinfected halls and the buzz of florescent lighting.

A flutter of black silk.

“As twilight fades and darkness falls,

Their absence weighs, a silent call,

But in the quiet, I find solace deep,

In the memories I'll forever keep."

Riya sang. Kedryn hummed. Glade fought his silent war as he had always done.

“So let us raise our voices, to the moons that softly weep,

In their melancholic beauty, our souls forever keep.

For as they pass in silent grace, our hearts in unison sigh,

In the endless cycle of the moons, we find the strength to say goodbye."

Ember, witnessing something both miraculous and terrible, wrapped his warmth around Glade’s soul, comforting him against the emotional onslaught of memories and loss.

The song’s haunting melody rose into the sky as both Glade and Ember bore witness to Riya and Kedryn burying an unknown heir and his people with their bare hands.

A flash of sliver light rose behind him as Riya sang the last verse, something soft falling in his open hand.

“A silent ode to memories strong, as we stand watch through the night.

They rise and fall in graceful arcs, a dance of fading light,

Their melancholic radiance, a bittersweet amends.

In twilight's tender sigh, we witness the moons descend.”

At some point, Riya finished the song, their task complete. No one spoke as they left the mists and headed back to the hall. It was only when they had returned that Glade came back to his senses long enough to sequester himself within the vault.

Hours passed as he sat on the lone bed, staring at the tokens given to them by the sapling as he wrestled to rebury the storms of emotion that raged through his soul. With Ember’s help, he slowly, ever so slowly, forced them down.

At Embers gentle urging, Glade placed the tokens earned on the desk before returning to the sole bed where he laid his head down. Absently, he turned off the lights with a surge of intent before laying his head on the pillow, where he finally, blessedly, found the sweet embrace of sleep.

Two leaves of gentle, silver radiance lay resting on the desk, the room’s only source of light.