Dear dead, midway to the town, you concealed the queen's bones under the army cloak, then smeared that with mud and pebbles. Night fell; in the darkness, you walked to the village, conscious of your silhouette in the starlight, slight shadow bouncing on the white animal hide tupiit. Tents, but more permanent. You exhaled and reached out for rough grass stems, dry soil, following the current of Tatter-cloak's blood.

Your tent stood out like a black feather in a mass of white. Because it was. Black in a mass of white. Under the starlight, that made it invisible. You crouched, feeling out with your fingers, your shadow giving no echo to your motions.

"Hello?" you said, to give him warning before stumbling about the entrance.

"Eeep." Then "oh good you made it back," cloth rustled, and a dim face emerged from the invisible dark.

"Sure" you said, ducking inside past him. Stale breath and contained heat prickled over your face. "If you want to be positive."

"Well, Kaliq was already kind of gone. ...Not to be harsh. That's just how I've convinced myself I shouldn't be sobbing my eyes out," the tent door rustled shut, blocking out the stars. He sniffed. "Is that smoke?"

"Yeah," you peeled off your boots, left them by the door. You stood up straight, the top of your head brushing the black canvas.

"Do I want to know?"

"Do you?"

The sense of Tatter-cloak's blood crawled toward the tent corner. "No, but I can't not know. So I guess I do."

You crouched, shuffling to the opposite corner. You laid down. Couldn't tell in the darkness if the cloak covering the floor was yours or the queen's. "They put her up on a pyre," the words went monotone from you, "and lit a fire, and I killed her when she nodded at me. If it makes you feel better, the king showed up and I killed him too."

Tatter-cloak sucked in a breath. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Already? Him? I...I thought I was supposed to be a witness, like in a trial. Give my word and everything."

"You did. You told me, you told her."

"I...I suppose, yes." A pause. You rolled to face the wall, equally as black as everything else in the dark. "I...wanted to give this grand speech, you know?" thick fabric muffled Tatter-cloak's words. "I wanted to tell the whole story how I saw it. Then, I would walk up and jab my fist at that king's servant and shout 'you did it! You're guilty! I saw you, with my own eyes! You killed the king!' Then I would break something by punching it, or maybe kicking it," his voice grew clearer, "I want to know what it feels like to physically punch that guy in the face, break his nose." Silence. Half-audible breathing. "Do you think that's dark?"

"I've never wondered that," you said.

"Oh. So it's pretty dark then."

You blinked away red blood blinding your vision. "I wouldn't say that."

A shaky sigh. Then another inhale.

You stared at the black wall of the tent.

***

Dear dead. No premise, or question. There's nothing else to be said, dear dead.

"I have a plan," The queen announced, huffing, her boots slurping through the mud. "The Empress commands the armies here, doesn't she?"

You crouched atop a rock and shrugged.

"Great," she trod past you, bag swinging from her hip, supposedly for gathering edible roots. The bag seemed awfully empty to you, but you were too busy watching the sky to ask. What plan? What plan involves knowing whether the Empress herself commanded the armies here?

The jet bird cawed from up above, shooting toward the ground. You stretched a hand out, palm up, and caught her by drizzling blood. She stopped, wingtips shivering above a boulder. You gasped and you let go, grimaced and you rubbed your wrist. The boulder still cracked at her landing.

***

I set the child in the doorway, so I can plug my nose and wend deeper into the narrow building. The child still screams, at existence I suppose, the senses of blood in adjacent buildings creeping not-so subtly away.

I wend deeper into the building, in a vain hope I can get rid of the smoke and we can use this empty building to talk. Quietly. Without the prying ears of an empty street.

The narrow hall opens into a kitchen, to a thick cloud of smoke, I wave a hand through it and shudder at the stove. Wood logs crackle and snap from its exposed belly, flickering magenta. And I can't look. Vain hope, I told you so.

The red tile under my boots wavers with my watering eyes, I stumble around the edge of the hatch-marked table and find the burned matter. The child's screams go watery in my ears, and I walk away.

Bandages, clean water, I repeat, cutting through the smoke. Bandages, water, a cloth to stuff in the screams. Maybe I can buy them off somebody, if I shout at their door. I yank the child by the arm, half by accident, half because there's burned matter on the red tile, bread crumbs clutched in darkened fingers.

Bandages, water, a cloth to stuff in the screams. I yank the child into the street, clear of the smoke and the smell, I sharply turn and glare my eyes in daggers. "You. Do not do that," I say. He falls silent, eyes lost under a mop of curly hair.

"You do not do that," I say. Let go and step away. "You'll get in trouble."

He sniffs. Pushes hair aside to reveal he is glaring back. "From who?"

"From me. From the Burners. From yourself," I tap the side of my head. I grab his wrist and tug him down the street, so much for bandages and water, he walks fine. "You see dead people in fire," I say. "The ones you put there, they want to rip you apart."

"How do you know?" he accuses, tries to yank away.

I point at the jet bird wheeling overhead. "I know the words you spoke to her. Twice," I point behind us to the scent of smoke. "She did not die after falling into her oven."

He tries yanking away again, eyebrows hard lines. "What do you know about me? They burned my auntie up!"

I crouch in front of him, fingernails biting into baby-skin wrist. He's pained into merely grimacing. My gaze flicks to the quiet, winding road of dark bricks behind him. "I don't remember my parents," I say. "I killed my teacher after he desecrated the dead body of the boy I loved. I buried a queen, killed a king. So what if they burned your auntie up? They didn't burn you." I let go and stalk away, holding my fingers back from mindlessly tying braids in the backpack cords. "You can stand there until someone else comes and catches sight of what you've done, or--"

The jet bird comets into the street beside me. I flinch, but not a single brick sprays from her crater. The child stalks the other way, crystal-sharp blood leaking down the outside of his shin.

"Fine then," I say to the bird, fluttering past me. "Fine. He can go wherever he wants," my fingers knot braids in the cords of the backpack, still digging into my hips.

***

Dear dead. You gave us no warning.

"But...but you can't do that!" Tatter-cloak exclaimed. A bundle of the tent cloth drifted from his fingers. "You're the queen!"

The queen collected scattered vegetables and knives into a sack. "Yes. I am."

You wordlessly shook out the cloak. Not that there was much to shake out. You all slept in the tent. The collapsible tent. The tent once propped up with needle-thin fish bones and rope.

"Yes, you are!" Tatter-cloak crumpled the tent in his fists. "Which is why you can't surrender!"

The queen stood, knotting the sack. "Yes, I am, which is why I can. And it's not surrendering. I have a plan."

"That's not a plan!" Tatter-cloak protested. "You'll never get close enough to the Empress herself."

"Yes, I will. Because I have to. Because this land needs me to."

"And what about us?" you asked. Picked at dirt stains on the cloak. "You said this war wasn't over. You go to the empress, what makes you think you will come back?"

The queen turned to you. You intentionally didn't look up. "Maybe I won't come back. Maybe my reign over the Nunait ends here. My life for the empress's. My life to free these lands."

"And what if she doesn't kill you?" you asked.

"Then you do."

Your eyes flicked upwards then. Met her stony gaze. "Then I do. So you are going to the Empress, and then when you get caught I have to come for you? Paint you a martyr?"

"Yes."

You stared down at the cloak. "What makes you think I want to do that?"

"As has been pointed out, I am the queen--"

"And I'm a death mage. Who is very tired of death. So, no."

"Uh," Tatter-cloak said. Coughed. "Maybe...we could discuss this later?" he held up a bundle of tent cloth that consumed his arms. "After we pack up?" his eyes flicked between us. "After the sun finishes rising, and we can all think clearly? And...maybe when I'm not around too?"

"Let us pack then," the queen knelt back down to collect threaded-together lengths of long fish bone, bundling them neatly in her fist. "We have plenty of walking to do today."

You slung the cloak around your shoulders. Walked to the far end of the tent to begin folding it in lumpy squares.

"But this involves you too, Uyagaq. You don't get to walk away on it."

Tatter-cloak hesitated. Reluctantly nodded. "Fine. But, no shouting please? Or menacingly whispering? Please?"

You wordlessly rolled up the tent.