The silence stretched for a while.
The fire popped and sent a thin column of sparks up into the dark, and the survivors stood looking at the elf in the firelight as though they had never seen one before.
Some of them looked ashamed. Others looked as if they wanted to be angry and could no longer remember how.
Then a short laugh cracked almost as if someone were scoffing. Their ears followed the laughter and found Bram with a rather crooked smile on his face.
"Help," he said. "Listen to him. He talks about help as if it were something he could just hand us."
His eyes were red, and his voice shook. "My wife died this morning. Did anyone tell you that, elf? Thirty years we were married, and she is lying under a blanket in the east tent because there was no one to dig her grave. And you stand there and speak to us of kindness."
"I did not know," Valen said quietly. "I am sorry."
