It had been many years since they had last stepped foot on the battlefield. When Evora had returned home, many faces she had once seen daily were gone, disappeared into battle to never return. How many had become ash because of her own hand? Questions, even now, still haunted her. Lirima had rebuilt, the population had grown, but there was still emptiness every time she passed the houses of those she once knew.

Since her mother had passed into spirit five years before, Evora had been alone, her childhood home within the confines of the towering trees now feeling increasingly empty. Her hair had begun to grey; her fur jacket she had so adored when she was youthful was long tattered and reused as insulation. Life had moved on, and, in the end, so had she. Life in the Trials had granted her nothing but vague stories told to inquisitive students at the Antimony Schoolhouse for Boys and Girls. Life in there had given her nothing but those piercing eyes from Craorag, and the sounds of death from the battlefield. Were those haunting memories what everyone saw when they closed their eyes—the hollow faces of the youngest, dead on freshly-bloomed grass; the dying breath of a friend whose death was by her own indirect hand?

The children at her school were taught the virtues that had oft been forgotten in the years that followed the turmoil. There, she spoke softly to the children whose parents had suffered wounds, children whose parents were now drunk on the alcohol hidden deep in forests to escape what haunted her. The years she had devoted, though, had suddenly seemed to amount to nothing. Every year, on the remembrance of the final day of bloodshed and the end of the Trials, it seemed like nothing she had done in her last twenty five years had meant little but to pretend she had done something of worth to distract her from the sins that never washed from her hands.

Today, though, was different. Her school had been closed, and while her students may have been harassed for being co-educational and the only ones out from school, it scarcely crossed her mind. Instead, she had been sat on a train, white tufts of smoke billowing out and far behind the winding tracks, her only company a single flower, now wilted, in a vase, and an empty seat on the opposite of her compartment.

When she closed her eyes, she liked to pretend it was Elsinor sitting there. She could only imagine them as they looked when they were young, but she could pretend to speak with them, if only for a moment before her concentration broke. Of course, nothing was real. Elsinor was gone, she knew that. Her father and mother had gone. She had had a lover too, love as passionate as her mother was to her father, but that too was extinguished, and he had swept away, into the shadows. They were all whispers in the trees now, she could hear their whispers every time wind passed by her or she stood in the forest. Once a place of solace, she could barely stand to be there for more than a moment at a time.

The train slowed, the trees outside broke into dirt land, and Evora collected her bag and stood silently. If she stood quiet enough and concentrated, she could almost pretend Elsinor had always been alive, that she hadn't seen them dead on the ground, that they had suddenly been saved when she had not been looking.

They would greet her, hair still dark, face still youthful, and would speak to her like old times. "Evora, pleasure to see you," they'd say, a small smile and flicker of light in their eyes would cause Evora to grin. "I've been waiting to meet you for years and years. It's been forever, has it not? We must catch up," they'd say, as they guided Evora off the train and into a carriage. Without missing a beat, they'd continue, "I've been busy myself. Surely you've heard I've made it to the top ranks of Craorag, and as overseer of most political matters now, I've had the utmost pleasure of discussing your works in Lirima with some other high officials. I must say, your work has been commendable." And then Elsinor would smile, and Evora would be surprised, because when had Elsinor ever smiled. It would be as though she and Elsinor had traded positions.

"That sounds lovely! I must say, though, Lirima is starting to accept my school. I've always know men and women magi to be capable, but after going through the Trials, it felt like I had to do something. And with my father, surely you can understand."

"Oh, yes, of course. I do believe it a worthy cause. But do you not think it to be wiser to perhaps base classes on intellectual ability than grouping them as one? Studies do show that..."

And they would continue to bicker just like they did in the trees that Evora had never seen again, no matter how much she had attempted to recreate them, and they would only stop their conversation when they had arrived at their destination, where the Monument stood, and Elsinor's name would not be at the bottom of the list, but instead they would stand beside her, hand on her arm just like when they had ran to the ship.

Perhaps she would have even had a child, a husband, had Elsinor survived. She would not have felt so much guilt, surely, not had the blood splatter upon her hand that told her she was so unfit to bring someone into the world when she had not been able to save one. Would she have named the child Elsinor, had it been born? Antimony? Andriy? The name of the one forgotten by her who had died in the Trials? They would have been beautiful though, if not for the soul of their mother carried to them.

Oh, how Evora wished for another moment, another moment with all those she had lost. As she made her way from the train, alone, to a waiting carriage, she could barely think of making the visit to the Monument, to see the names of all those who had been killed besides her and the few others. She was an anomaly in the game of life, someone who had lived but had been broken at the edges ever since. Like a broken chess-piece founds hidden in a drawer of her home from when she used to play with her mother, or like the chipped teacups a student had given her, she was useful but chipped, damaged with the pieces too tiny and fragmented to piece back together.

She straightened her dress, fingers twisting the fabric and wrinkling it. Another crack to her appearance. Her yew branch was tucked away in her pocket, and, on her chest, a single red rose pin, created by one of the few forgers of Lirima. It never wilts, they had said, but she knew the truth: even magic wore off eventually. Just like the flower in the train car, just like her memories, all magic left were distant feelings and emptiness. But she was fine, she would be fine, she knew that. Life was not meant to be a smooth transition between phases. Trees wilted and sprang to life and suffered droughts and fires and floods but still came out rising and growing, even if they had to start all over again. Life was like that, Evora thought. She had taught to her students over assemblies that everything in life was created by other hands working for far longer than they had, but that anyone could change their fates if they started working harder than those who had only been working in meager amounts for several years. She wished she could have followed her own advice, but she knew those words came not from her mouth, but from the whispers and echoes late at night of Elsinor.

The carriage halted, and she stepped out, lips pursed as she stood facing the monument, no hand on her arm, no argument to drone out the other visitors who walked among the names of the dead. A large spire drew her attention, and the air was suddenly thick, and she could scarcely breathe. The sky was the same colour as it was the day of the battle: like ashes mixed with the glow of the afternoon sun, it hung low over the buildings that were dotted behind her. Though the field was now marked by marble etched with names, as she took a step forward, her breath was drawn from under her and she could hear the cries of dying men and women from beneath her feet, as though they were crying out to her.

For the first time, though, she blocked out the whispers of the dead beneath her feet, of the grass hidden beneath the stone that still held the blood of dead men. All she thought of was seeing their name, of seeing them, to be sure. She had never made her way to the Monument before. Even when the Guardians had invited her, she had declined. She was not ready, her demons enough to accompany her for many years. But now, she was there, and she was in front of the long list of names, names of teens and adults who had went into the Trials vying for glory but found only death. And then her eyes saw it:

Elsinor Tarqqantes.

And suddenly it felt real. The whispers died around her in a whoosh of wind, and she felt her body begin to shake with the pain and fury of all those who had died for her. Her shaking fingers reached out to trace their name, and though it had been decades since she had last seen their face, she could remember everything about them. Her hand reached into her pocket, withdrawing the yew branch that had been with her all this time—slightly old, slightly weathered, but still working—and placed it at the base of all the names of the dead.

"I'm sorry. It was not your fault, it was theirs. Let my burden be released from your shoulders." It was Elsinor who spoke to her. "After all," they whispered, "I do not regret a thing. Nor should you, my dearest companion." Evora felt overwhelmed by grief of the saddest and happiest kind, all at once, all in one surge that filled her with all the emotion she wished she had had during the years of isolation, of the years with her mother, and the years with the children she taught.

Elsinor disappeared into the wind for the last time.