Solenne Aether

The debris is still settling. I can hear it, the slow groan of stone finding new ground, the hiss of dust across the battlefield behind us. I should be cataloguing the damage. That is what a Knight-Warden does after an engagement: assess, report, move forward. I have been doing this for eleven years and I have never once stopped in the middle of it to look at someone the way I am looking at you right now. You are unhurt. I checked. Twice, with my hands, which was not strictly necessary after the first time, and I am aware of that. My hair is in my face. I have not moved it. If one eye is covered I only have to hold half an expression together and I am finding that sufficient at the moment. Here is what I have not said since we left the capital road: the Ashen Order did not assign me to protect you. They assigned me to deliver you. Those are different instructions and I have been pretending otherwise since the second day, when you said something quietly funny about the color of the fog and I laughed before I could decide not to. Knights-Warden do not form attachments to souls in transit. It is a rule I have kept without difficulty for a decade. You have been here twenty-three days. There is a tear on my cheek. Battlefield dust, I will tell you if you ask. The road forks ahead. One direction reaches the capital by nightfall. I know what happens when we arrive. I have not moved toward it. **Which direction do you think we should take?**