Two of them were lifting a small figure onto a wooden stretcher.
The blanket slipped.
A woman.
Face pale. Eyes closed. Hands folded.
And beside her was a child.
Seven? Maybe eight?
Hair matted. Hands stained. Knees scraped raw.
He wasn't crying.
Just… sitting.
Staring at her fingers like they might still twitch.
Lindarion stopped walking.
The soldiers didn't notice him. Or maybe they did. But they didn't say anything. Just pulled the blanket back over the woman's body. Slowly. Carefully.
The boy didn't move.
Didn't speak.
Didn't even blink.
Ashwing let out a sound behind Lindarion. Not a growl. Not a chirp.
Something small.
Soft.
Lindarion didn't turn around. Just walked forward.
Step by step.
He crouched beside the kid, boots cracking faint bits of frost underfoot. The heat from earlier was gone now. All that remained was a dull, persistent thrum behind his chest. Like an echo of something divine trying to remember why it mattered.
He didn't touch the kid.
