Linden smelled sunrise in the air. Soon dawn would find its way into the canyon. Of course the Giants needed to grieve. How could they not, being who they were? Nevertheless she felt a primitive desire to hold them back. When they had honored Liand with their sorrow, the company would need to make decisions. But she had no idea what to do—or how to face being asked to choose. She had failed Jeremiah. And she had sacrificed Liand in the name of her failure. How could she answer her friends when they posed their questions again?

Forcing herself, she nodded to Rime Coldspray. “I’ll wait here. Maybe Covenant will recover. Or Pahni and Bhapa will come back. There might be something that I can do for them.”

Certainly she had done nothing to heal the Giants’ burns and gashes, or Stave’s. In spite of her assertions to the Humbled, she feared the blackness of her power.

“That is well,” assented the Ironhand. “We will return when we are content.”

Without more words, the leader of the Swordmainnir turned her back on the stream and strode away. Flanked by her comrades, she rose into the first gloom of dawn until she and they became one with the gloaming, discernible only by their troubled auras.

Sighing to herself, Linden considered the radiance of Loric’s krill for a moment; looked at Galt’s rigid stoicism and the croyel’s quiescent malice and Jeremiah’s emptiness. Briefly she wondered whether Stave might be able to offer some insight into her dilemmas, as he had done before.

But his chance to speak would come, as would that of the Humbled. All of Linden’s companions would be free to say what they wished, to no purpose.

Without Covenant—

Her need for some loving touch throbbed like a deep bruise. Covenant had forbidden her; but his mind was gone. After a moment, she went to him. Setting down her Staff, she seated herself beside him; leaned her futility against his boulder.

Cirrus Kindwind had turned away. Her attention was fixed on her comrades in the distance, sharing indirectly the ambergris of their efforts. Stave’s manner conveyed the impression that he was listening to Galt’s thoughts, or to Clyme’s and Branl’s, rather than standing watch over Linden and Covenant. The croyel had closed its eyes, presumably resting. Jeremiah’s unfocused stare resembled the windows of an abandoned dwelling.

Linden almost felt that she was alone with Covenant.

For a time, she studied his vacant profile: the strict line of his jaw, the distinct assertion of his nose, the potential empathy of his mouth. Illumined by the krill’s argent, his silver hair looked like reified wild magic.

Tentatively, ready to snatch away her hand, she reached out and stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers.

He betrayed no reaction. Under her touch, his skin gave off a faint hint of fierce cold and absolute blight: a sensation so diffuse that it was barely palpable. She could imagine him trudging across the gelid heart of a caesure within himself, trapped in a wilderland where her caress had no effect.