Uachi could hear Diarmán's footsteps approaching him, hear his heavy breathing.

There was a silence, broken only by the sound of two men and two huge shadowcats breathing. Uarria had turned her attention back to Ealin's body, sniffing it cautiously as if she weren't quite sure what to make of it. Farra was there too, making her own careful examination. Uachi stepped toward them again, or tried, but it was more of a lurch, uncertain and unsteady. Diarmán was there in an instant, offering an arm for him to lean against. "Steady on," he murmured.

"I'm fine." Uachi shook his hand off.

Diarmán did not argue, although there was something in his face that suggested he wished to. He stayed where he was as Uachi once again drew near to the two shadowcats. Both had their hackles up; their tails were puffy, their eyes wide.

"Uarria," Uachi said. The princess started and turned toward him as if she'd heard the clash of a sword. "It's okay." He raised both of his hands. His pulse was racing. The adrenaline was fading, leaving him feeling shaken. Did this mean Uarria was a threat? She stared at him, her face dripping blood, obviously on edge. Had she intended to hurt Ealin, or had she responded to some base animal instinct to lash out at her?

Uarria scented the air, looking from Uachi to Diarmán, who had come up behind him. Then, she moved slowly forward, her large paws making hardly any sound in the soft grass, and she butted her head against Uachi's knee.

He knelt next to her and put his arms around her. "It's okay," he said again. "It's okay, firefly. You're okay. We all are."

All of us except Ealin. Oh, Ealin...what has become of you? Who were you before I held you in my arms?

There would have been no helping her. Uachi knew that. Even had he managed to pull Uarria off before the end, how could they have staunched the flow of blood? What surgeon could have helped her? How could they ever have even found a healer in time?

"Uachi."

"Can you not leave me in peace for one damned minute!" Uachi whirled to regard Diarmán; Uarria went tense at the sound of his raised voice. The Faelán man's eyelids batted closed, the barest hint of a flinch, before he met Uachi's gaze calmly. Uachi glared at him, and he was horrified to realize that his voice was shaking. "What is it!"

Diarmán pointed. In the distance, Uachi could barely make out a flash of light on metal and the beacon of a banner, blue and silver.

"Tell me they're friends," Diarmán said.

Uachi rose, focusing on the sight. It was something to latch onto, something real. "The silver and blue are Matei's colors, the fancy damned fool," Uachi replied. "It's the Imperial Army."

"Marvelous," said Diarmán. "I like my fools fancy." His tone was too soft. Too solemn.

Silence fell. Uachi stared at the distant sight for a long time. Where was the relief? Where the joy? He could sense Diarmán moving, but he didn't turn. He couldn't, not when he knew that Ealin lay just a few paces away, her tortured body a brutal accusation.

Then came a rustling sound, and Uachi could not help but look. Diarmán was kneeling at Ealin's side. Seeing her sent another lance of horror and grief through Uachi. He was ready to tear Diarmán back, push him away...but Diarmán simply reached out, sliding his long, slender fingers down Ealin's brow, gently closing her eyes.

"'Tis an army," he said quietly. "We'll be able to track them easily enough. There's time to see to her, Uachi."

Something painful filled Uachi's heart, something he could not, would not dare to name. It tore at the very core of him with bloodied fingers, and Uachi wrapped all of his strength tightly around the urge to scream, strangling the sound in his throat. It came out a choked sob as he sank to his knees.

Diarmán didn't speak. Uachi could sense his gaze upon him, but he could not look away from Ealin's blood-spattered face. He drew a slow breath, trying not to believe that he was crying, even though he could feel the hot tears sliding down his cheeks. He raised his bloody hands to his face, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. "I just—" he rasped. "I just—I didn't—"

"It's all right," Diarmán murmured.

"I can't—"

Uachi could not hold it back. He lowered his head, his shoulders shuddering with another sob. He tried not to make a sound. Holding it in made his chest ache. Then he felt the weight of Diarmán's hand on his shoulder. Turning toward him was as natural as breathing. Allowing Diarmán's other arm to slide around his shoulders was like closing his eyes. Diarmán's arms were warm and steady, and in that safe and silent harbor, it was all right for Uachi to be weak, just for a moment. His body shaking, he cried until his eyes ached and his throat ached and stomach ached.

He didn't know how long he knelt there with Diarmán. When his mind had settled, he found that he'd wrapped his fists into Diarmán's tunic, and he felt soothing fingers combing through his sweaty hair. He opened his eyes, releasing his grasp on Diarmán's clothes.

As soon as he did, Diarmán loosened his embrace, straightening slowly. "Let me..." He hesitated. "...You should drink some water."

Uachi lifted the hem of his filthy tunic to his face and wiped it clean of tears. He didn't meet Diarmán's eye as he unhooked his water skin from his belt and took a couple of healthy swallows. He handed it to his companion silently, then got to his feet. He felt numb and strange, as if he were not truly here in the world.

Diarmán drank. Then he, too, rose.

In complete silence, the two men tended to Ealin. They gathered her body and carried it farther from the battlefield, finding a place beneath a tree. They had no tools, but for Farra, with her huge, wide paws, it was easy enough to dig a grave with only basic instructions. Uarria watched for a time, and then she participated for a time, and then she pranced through the flying falls of dirt for a time, every bit the playful child she should have been—the playful child she had been before all of this had happened.

Uachi could still see the stains of Ealin's blood on her jaws.

There was no way to do it properly. Uachi could not bathe Ealin. He couldn't dress her in something fine. He could wash her face, and he could comb her hair, and he could smooth the plait she always wore with its tiny bird-shaped charm. He could use his cleaner tunic to wrap the bloody mess of her throat. That was all he could offer her. But he did those things, as gently as he could.

As he laid her down in her grave, Uachi did not pray. He did not speak, not aloud. In the silence of his heart and mind he hoped. He hoped for rest, for peace for the spirit of the woman he had once loved.

Uachi and Diarmán knelt by the graveside and, with Farra's assistance, they filled the earth in over Ealin's body. It was Diarmán who gathered the stones to mark the place; he took his time searching until he returned with pockets full of the palest ones, and when he knelt down, he arranged them into a gentle, swooping V, like a simplified, child's bird. Uachi did not know what it meant. He didn't ask.

By the time they had finished, the sun was sinking.

"Let's go find you an army," Uachi said at last.

"You are not very good at giving presents," Diarmán replied. His smile was still solemn. It was a faded smile, travel-worn and weary. When he led the way toward their horses, he lacked his usual lightness of step and easiness of posture, but when he turned to look at Uachi— "Come on, then, before someone else finds 'em first—" he seemed cheerful enough.

Uachi trudged after him, feeling hollow.

He should have been happy. Uarria was safe. He and Diarmán were very nearly among allies, and hopefully, soon, they would have a way to broker peace with the Narrian High Queen. Perhaps they would even have a way to secure Diarmán's future. And Ealin...Ealin had been brought to brutal justice, after all.

In a story, all of the loose endings would have been neatly tied up. In a story, Uachi would understand what had driven Ealin to do what she'd done. He would have unraveled the secrets of her parentage. Was she Arcborn, the mixed-blood child of the archmage and some servant or stranger? Or was there some other explanation for her enchanted blood? What had torn her away from her father, and why had she risked so much to return to him?

Had she ever loved Uachi?

Had any of it been real?

But Uachi would live without answers. He would always have to wonder whether there had ever been a chance for redemption for Ealin, the woman who'd been so afraid of the dark. 

The end of a chapter, in more ways than one. 

Oh, Ealin. How different things might have been.