Dawn came. Darkness dissipated. The sun shone and the sky was clear, a glistening blue of pure innocence, with no clouds scarring its canvas. Noises sprang up. Rattling in the bushes, trilling among the boughs, clattering on wood from the depth of the trees.

How severe a contrast that was compared to the look of the ravine.

The demons had left. The bonfires from the day before burnt down, thick smoke emanated from their remnants, ash lay scattered around them. Long and deep rifts marred the surface of the otherwise muddy and frayed earth. Bones of who knew what origins littered the rocks and fallen trees, spots of fur stuck on branches, scales worn away and stomped into the dirt.

And in the middle of all that lay he. Broken like a doll, drained as a corpse.

Ida had freed Vardille from her spell before dawn came, after they were sure the demons had left. They were wary of him; they kept their distance. Mjel had an eye on her hammer, keeping it close to her if—or rather, when—the worst would happen, and the knight turned against them.

That anticipation had so far proved needless.

The man was silent. Did not speak at all, did not move at all. Sat in the grass, sullen, collapsing under his thoughts, knees pulled up, arms resting on them. He dropped his sword when the faelin let him go. Did not care much about that. Mjel picked it up, holding onto it since.

They waited until dawn broke, then, as though they had agreed on it, they rose and went to the ravine.

Mjel, a couple steps behind Vardille, watched as he slowly approached the body of King Bryne Khryssalan. His steps seemed prudent, but not reluctant, no hesitation present in his moves. Vardille knelt by his friend, and gingerly, as if touching a newborn, he lifted the old man’s head, laying it in his lap, one hand resting below his head, the other on his chest.

Bryne’s body looked like old weathered parchment. His skin thin, tight against his skeleton, black and sick green spots dappling his hands, arms, neck, face. His hair had already been white, but now it was sparse, weak, looking like spider web. His face so hollow it was nearly a skull. And his eyes—no longer brown and piercing, no longer raged storms in it; it was glassy and grey, like that of a corpse.

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But open. And twitching.

‘My King …’ Vardille’s voice choked. Mjel quickly turned; she felt she was breaching their privacy. She had no right to witness the last words they would exchange. King and Bodyguard, friend and friend. She briskly walked away, occupying herself with the view of the ravaged land.

Idamin stayed far from them. She sat on a stump, face buried in her hands.

The breeze carried low mumbles and whispers Mjel ignored arrestingly. But after a while, they died out. Silence. The hiss of wind only carried the stillness of grief. Mjel could have sworn she heard quiet sniffs and sighs, but she feverishly tried to pretend he had not.

She glanced behind when she heard stirs of movement. Vardille gently pulled Bryne’s body to his back and carried him to the rock wall. He then tenderly lowered him to the base, and tried searching for rocks, putting them around Bryne. Mjel watched in silence for a couple of moments, then she walked beside him, reluctant, and lifted a stone, turning to the man, offering it to him.

Vardille paused, his gaze fixed on the ground. Mjel swallowed as the man slowly extended his hands, palms turned upwards. She gave him the chunk of stone, then watched as the knight, not without hesitation, lay it over his dead friend. Idamin soon joined them. They worked methodically, without uttering a single word, rock by rock.

Time seemed to stand still around them. After Vardille deemed the stone-mound massive enough for beasts not to be able to dig out the body, he nodded. He brought his left to his chest, knelt, bending his right leg, back straight, facing the grave. He did not wince, his eyes intensely staring at the stones under which the King of Amrith lay to rest for eternity. Mjel and Ida silently backed away, patient.

The day slowly crawled into afternoon. Mjel and Ida was sitting on the trunk of a tree when Vardille approached them, face indifferent, unreadable as if carved from stone.

‘He’s gone,’ he declared the obvious. His voice had an unfamiliar coarse edge. Mjel nodded; she did not dare do anything else.

‘We had better move on,’ the knight continued, turning already, treading away from the scene, decisive.

Mjel got up, holding the knight’s blade in her hands.

‘Your … sword.’

The man stopped, whirling about, pain distorting his features.

‘It did not serve its purpose when it counted the most,’ he declared. He shook his head. ‘Keep it. You’ve earned it.’

Responses turned to ash in Mjel’s mouth as Vardille left, not looking back.