Chapter 13 #4
The thought did not flare or rage; it settled, heavy and unmoving, somewhere deep within her, where it would not be dislodged by reason or time.
She did not hear Dawes approach. There was only the faint disturbance of the air beside her and the muted crunch of frost giving way beneath a heavier step. She tightened her grip on Cyrus’s hand as he stopped beside her, feeling it in the shift of the air.
She was not ready for a lecture.
Not about the cost of war. Not about the way her heart recoiled each time blood was drawn, as though it still believed the world could be otherwise.
Not about the weakness of her stomach or the softness that refused to harden no matter how many bodies lay at her feet.
She was not ready to be told this was the price of what they were doing.
That this was ordinary. That she would need to become something sharper if she intended to survive it.
The quiet between them stretched, filled only by the low scrape of shovels further down the line and the soft whisper of wind moving through the grass.
She waited for the words.
He drew in a breath, and she flinched.
“Do you know the rite?”
Alethea did not look up. Her fingers remained wrapped around Cyrus’s hand, the chill of it seeping slowly into her own. She shook her head.
Dawes lowered himself beside her with deliberate care, his movements unhurried, mindful of both the sanctity of the moment and the injury that made her posture so still. “Would you like to do it?” he asked.
The question caught her off-guard. Her throat tightened, a sudden resistance rising in her chest.
The rites belonged to those who had fought beside him—those who had known him beyond a passing greeting or a shared night of watchfires. She had no claim here. No right to stand in this moment where something sacred was being returned.
And yet Dawes had asked.
It did not matter that Cyrus’s death would remain with her, a quiet stone she’d carry for the rest of her life. It did not matter what she felt.
Cyrus had one last need of the living.
And she was here.
Her throat tightened further, but she managed a small nod. Dawes reached for the bowl of ash and held it out to her, reciting the words for her to speak.
“In Aevensor’s keeping,” he said quietly, “we return what was borrowed.”
She dipped her thumb into the ash, her hand unsteady as she touched the powder. It was softer than she expected, warm from the coals it had come from.
Dawes guided her without touching. “The brow,” he murmured.
She pressed her thumb gently to Cyrus’s forehead. The ash left a pale smudge against his skin. Her voice trembled as she recalled the words.
“For thought returned to stillness.”
“The throat.”
Her hand moved lower, the tremor in it barely contained. “For breath returned to wind.”
“The chest.”
The fabric of his tunic was cool beneath her fingers. “For blood returned to soil.”
“The hands.”
She hesitated there, already holding one.
Dawes waited.
She marked the other. “For deeds returned to memory.”
The words settled between them, quiet and unadorned.
Dawes placed the length of dark thread in her palm. “The Traveler’s Thread,” he said. “So Aevensor knows he is expected.”
Her grip tightened once more around Cyrus’s hand before she forced it to loosen. The absence came immediately, cold and final, but she reached for the thread anyway, fingers fumbling as she looped it loosely around his wrist, tying it as she had seen on the others.
Dawes waited until the knot was set before reaching for the burlap sack at Cyrus’s side—the one containing everything that had been found on him.
It rested near his hip, its mouth tied, the shapes of its contents pressing faintly against the rough weave.
Dawes loosened the cord and reached inside, searching with careful hands before drawing out a chain.
It was worn smooth with use, the metal dulled where fingers had handled it often.
At its end hung a small pendant: a wolf, unmistakable in its form.
A symbol of Nehalennia. It had been set aside from the rest of his belongings.
The other items would be wrapped, tagged, and sent onward, returned to whatever home was awaiting word of him.
“A token,” Dawes said quietly. “Something that passed through his hands.” He placed it in hers.
The metal was cool against her skin as Alethea lowered the pendant carefully, resting it over Cyrus’s heart. She let the chain fall in a loose curve across his still chest. The wolf caught the morning light briefly.
Dawes inclined his head. “Now his name.”
Her hand lingered over the wolf pendant. The morning was quiet—the kind of quiet that made every breath feel louder than it should.
“His name was Cyrus Galanis,” she said, the words barely more than breath.
Dawes bowed his head.
“Seen and remembered.”
The words settled into silence.
Alethea did not know if she could do this—stand among the dead and call it purpose; watch the cost mount and still believe in what awaited at the end of it.
But there was no road behind her anymore.
Only this one.