The sound of a door opening woke Roge. There were noises of horses and dallens and other animals, but his mind had filtered all of these to the background. Now that he was awake, he could smell bread and the aroma of rich stew.

The unfamiliar bed grated. He tried moving, and sharp pain coursed through his whole body, causing it to go limp in shock. His eyes opened to see someone standing above him.

“You’re awake. Good. Father wasn’t sure you would ever”—a young woman stood over him, holding a plate in her hand.

His aborted movement had shifted the blanket that was covering him, sending his own rank smell at him, and he winced.

The woman’s hair was dark blond, eyes blue. She smiled at him beatifically. Roge closed his eyes, surrendering to the dark again.

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When he woke next, he was alone in the room. He again tried moving before opening his eyes, and again, pain assaulted him from every part of his body. That, more than anything, told him he most likely wasn’t dead yet. The dead, from what Edmur Eyser told him, did not complain of the maladies of the living.

He moved his head in measured steps, checking what freedom he had before pain returned. He could see a table near the bed with a plate on it. He couldn’t move his hands, so it was as useful as a second conversation with the dead.

He noticed the lingering smell of stew in the air, now cold. His stomach grumbled. He also felt an intense pressure on his bladder.

He tried to sit up. His whole back seized, and he fell back to the bed, panting. Breathing hurt as well, his chest sending spikes of pain whenever he expanded it too much.

His bladder would not take much more. Exhaling, he let go, relieving himself, feeling the warmth spread between his legs.

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When he woke again, it was dark. He still could not move without pain but no longer felt wet, and the sharp stench of urine did not permeate the air.

It was quieter outside. Insects made their occasional chirping, and an animal moved once in a while, but he sensed no other activity. He tried clearing his throat to speak, and a cough wracked him, causing waves of pain to shoot throughout his body.

The door opened, and an older man looked in. The man waited for the coughing to subside, then said, “Enell will bring you some water.” With that, he was gone.

Enell came in carrying a cup of water and a plate, setting both on the table and sat on the side of the bed. Light filtered in through the open door, highlighting her blond hair, now flowing down freely around her face.

“Do you want water?” she asked. “No, don’t speak. I’ll bring it to your mouth.”

Taking the cup, she tilted it above his lips, wetting his mouth.

He noticed how dry his mouth was now that the pain wasn’t taking up all his attention. Most of the water ran down his cheek and neck, but he managed to swallow some, the cool sensation breathing life into his body. Some trickled down the wrong pipe, causing him to once more cough and count every painful nerve.

“That won’t do,” she said. “You’re crying out more than you’re taking in. I’ll have to feed you like the young’uns.”

Taking a spoon, she helped him drink the water sip by sip.

“I found a bird once when I was a girl. It fell from the tree and was just lying there going peep, peep,” she said, giving him another spoonful. “It was lucky I got there before some fox or snake came by. I had to feed it water the same, drop by drop.”

He could not take his eyes off her.

“Do you want to try some stew? It’s cold but good.”

He nodded.

Switching to the plate, she loaded a small amount on the spoon and brought it to his mouth.

He was ravenous, his mouth watering painfully, like during days when he worked late and hadn’t had anything to eat for hours. The stew was only slightly thicker than water but had small pieces of meat and vegetables mixed in. He moved those around his mouth, swallowing without chewing after he’d sucked the flavor out.

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She smiled at that, feeding him more of the stew.

“I like the chicken stew the best, though dallen stew is not bad either,” she said.

He kept eating, and she kept talking about everyday inane things. The plate was empty too soon.

“Can you tell me your name?” she asked.

He tried speaking, but no sound came out. When he tried forcing air through it, the coughing took him again.

“Sleep,” she said and left the room, closing the door.

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A loud animal call woke Roge up. It was early morning, and he tried to understand what was making the racket. Where was he?

The light was dim, but he could see this wasn’t his room, not his bed. There was a table next to the bed, and his wooden dallen was sitting on it. The memories hit him, and he started crying.

He remembered the duke’s party coming in the middle of the night, the hurried preparation, the frantic hiding and climbing out of the monastery. Even as a child, he’d never been this adventurous nor this scared. He remembered Edmur Eyser’s dead body passing by him, remembered his dead family in the courtyard.

The memory of killing the two guards hit him like a physical punch. He had never killed before. He had butchered dallens when the acolytes needed to make meals or to smoke the animals to prepare special feasts for pilgrims. He had once had to kill a fox that had repeatedly tried getting into the coops.

He had protected the monastery so that living animals didn’t make it into the areas of the dead. But, despite having dealt with death his entire life, despite handling the dead, cleaning them, and sending them on their way, he had never killed another human being.

The animal outside cried again, a joyous cry, a challenge to the world. What was it? Where was he? He remembered walking down from the monastery, steeped in blood and sorrow, remembered the lengthening shadows as the sun set on that day when his life came to an end. He remembered falling, yet this was not death.

The animal cried a third time. Sounds were coming from the other side of the door, people moving. They didn’t seem in a hurry or panicked, so Roge wasn’t in danger. He wasn’t in danger from the animal.

He had murdered. He was forced to murder. The old duke, the dead duke, had been very explicit. “Your life must change. The world will see war like no other unless you do as I say. You are Roge Lifebane of the monastery no more.”

The dead do not lie, yet the dead do not tell all. The duke did not tell him his son would kill Edmur Eyser. The ghost did not tell him its murderous son would end Roge’s entire world.

The door opened, interrupting Roge’s dark recollections. The man came in, looking at him. Seeing Roge awake, he grunted.

The man was in his fifties, with graying hair and sunkissed skin. He had the muscular build of someone who had worked all his life. His simple, stained work clothes had him ready to start his day.

“Still alive, eh?” he said. “Enell will help you later. I need to go out to the field. You have a name?”

Roge considered. The old duke said he was no longer Roge. He didn’t know what that meant. His eye fell on the wooden dallen near the table.

“D—” he coughed, the pain there but not debilitating. “Dalle.”

“Dalle,” the man nodded, turning around but leaving the door open.

Roge still did not know who the man was.

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“So, little birdie,” said Enell, walking into the room with a plate and a cup, “I heard you learned to speak.”

Other than dealing with the dead or family members of the dead, Roge had never had any long interactions with women. The acolytes in the monastery were all men. Edmur Eyser had once told him it used to be different, that men and women both worked at the monastery. There were even rumors, whispered among the children of pilgrims and dissuaded by the older acolytes, that the prophet was a woman.

The reason, Edmur Eyser explained, that women no longer served at the monastery was that women had children. Men, Roge understood, had children, too, but women grew them in their bellies.

Children died, sometimes in childbirth or earlier, before there was a person in the body. The mothers or the fathers would still sometimes try to bring them back, to hug them one last time, talk to them, tell them they were loved. The things that came through those bodies, Edmur Eyser said, were not the spirits of the babies but rather harbingers of the dead. These were not to be trifled with. That was why no women served as acolytes at the monastery.

Roge did not know how he was supposed to respond to her.

“I—” coughing, painful.

“Yes, my father told me. You are Dalle. Dalle? What kind of name is that?”

She sat down, putting the plate and cup on the table. “I thought your small friend would help keep you company. We tried to find out who you are. I’m sorry for looking through your things, but Father said we would do so anyway if you died.”

She picked up the cup. “Do you want me to raise your head so you could try drinking?” he nodded, and she did so, using one hand to prop his head up while the other held the cup to his lips.

“We found you by the mountain of the monastery. Did someone die?”

He was just swallowing a swig of water, and the question caught him by surprise. He coughed water spraying out, hitting him and her both. The pain hit him again, muting the memories some.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, waiting for his coughing to subside.

“Yes,” he finally said, not elaborating.

She nodded sagely. “My mother died when I was little. We buried her in the yard.”

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Roge did not know what to make of her. She fed him breakfast and helped him clean up. He had broken multiple bones and had trouble moving, though one arm had just the one finger broken, and he could use it after a fashion.

She had no problem helping him clean up after himself. “I work with the animals on the farm,” she said, shrugging.

She didn’t press him for details. His pain was evident, so she talked about the farm and her life with her father. He did learn that the animal that woke him with its heart-stopping cries was Ser Jossa since it used to be small and yellow and like that famous boy in the story, but that it was now big and colorful. He still didn’t know what manner of beast it was, or the name of her father.