She is not here.


 * The dirt under his feet held no life in it.  He stared at the desecration. It was not enough. The blackened steeples of char out past him, the flames pushing forward, pushing north.  This outcropping was his pedestal.  He stood, but this was not his place. This was her funeral pyre.  Smoke in the air.  Black and red on his fingers.  Black and red on his blades. This was his gift to her.

 

Beneath him, the burning world.


 * This destruction was his own, but it was only vaguely familiar.  He remembered it. He had done this once before. These types of flames were only for goodbyes. These flames held no good in them. This did not feel the same. The first funeral pyre was good. The fire burned away everything that held him. Filled him with something hotter than the forest he burned away. This one left him feeling cold no matter how much he let burn around him. He left his pedestal, and moved into the pyre. He laid in the embers. Let them fall like snow until he was buried in it. Still cold.

''Her hand clenching and unclenching. Her hand that knew fire. Her hand at her side, still and then restless, repeating. ''


 * Her voice was her own, but it was only vaguely familiar.  He remembered it. There was fear in it, deliverance. He had heard this in her voice once before. That time had not been good, either. The first time left her cold. This deliverance brought heat from her eyes and in her throat and at her fingertips. He felt this. There was no good in it.

 

Her voice, that brought storms.

 


 * He knew that there was something under her words because she stared at the ground before she looked at him.  She had always done that; the habit had not left her after twenty years.  He wondered what she was hiding.  He raised the flames higher.  He wondered if she was aware that she was hiding something.  The heat flared in his chest and and the air around him trembled.  The cracking of trees, surrendering to flame and finding their grave in the dirt.  Firewinds, gusts that brought dry heat.  Her body didn’t burn here.  He wondered if her bones cracked like wood too.  Wondered if the wind was caressing her skin with the same scorching fervor that it brought to him.

 

This heat was his own, but it was only vaguely familiar. He remembered it.

''' '''

He did not want it. This was death’s heat.

''' '''

''Her shoulders shaking as she spoke. Her voice trembling, too.''

''' '''

These words were lucid and clear in his mind.

 

She is not here                                                                                                             She is not here

She is not here                                                  She is not here

She is not here

 


 * Ral had never known if he loved Sigodrye  but he found there to be a sudden and burning void even before Ephra spoke.  The weight on her shoulders.  Something in the air had been wrong.  Even from the way she moved, and pretended to move, there was something missing. She is not here.  She didn’t make it.  She is not here.  There had been no time to act.  She is not here.  She died doing what she did best.  She is not here.  She was faithfully dangerous until the end.  She is not here.  I’m sorry.  She is not here.

''' '''

Something Sigodrye had said to him before she left echoed in his mind. Her voice was her own, but it was only vaguely familiar. What she said, he did not remember it.