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Rune crumples.

Dare storms down the corridor, Samick at his heels.

And Tris wobbles with a shuddering cry that cringes me.

Eamon often reads stories from the human realm. Words woven from false fantasies.

I loathe those books, I loathe them for this very reason. The lie of it all. In those books, characters get to say goodbye.

That’s the lie.

It blooms an ugly hope within us.

Then reality crushes it in its cold, dead fist.

Because I don’t get to say goodbye to Aleana. No one does.

I didn’t know the last time I spoke to her would be just that—the last time.

And now… she’s gone.

Aleana is dead.

And Hemlock House floods with cries.

26

††††††

This Quiet, when the air is as silent as the dead, I learn more of Dorcha culture than I ever wanted to know.

Funerals.

With all of Hemlock House out here in the ash grounds, just one phase after Aleana drifted away from our world, I feel as uncomfortable in my own body as I do in this moment.

It is an unsettling thing to watch General Agnar lift a weighted ateralum torch and dip it into the sooted metal pit.

Black flames lick up the torch and take root, fast.

Face like a stone mask, the general steps back from the firepit and takes the torch with him. He turns for the stacked wood bed, where Aleana’s body lies.

I don’t look at her.

But that doesn’t stop the sight of her corpse from creeping into my peripherals. Her rigid body, arms stiff down her sides, glistens paler than moonlight. But the hue darkens as Agnar closes in on her with the black flame.

My eyes crease against the heat of the flaming torch.

Beside me, Eamon turns his chin down to his shoulder. He can’t watch.

I don’t blame him.

A sickly burn sears my throat as Agnar lowers the torch—and Aleana’s body, balmed in fresh oil, takes flame.

This is so entirely different to what we do in Licht.

We have burials of the earth and the sky. Once the soul leaves the body, that vessel should return to Mother. It belongs to her earth, and so we have them composted: cut into small pieces, then spread over the soil. Birds and beasts will feast on the remains, because that is the circle of life. We feed it in life and in death. And once the body is devoured by nature, the soul is free from its vessel—and it lifts up into the skies where the afterlife awaits it.

The Dorcha way isn’t something I agree is best.