A painful, wounded one. A right to anger and pain. Why did he toss it away? She looked him in the eyes, and he saw something he had lost somewhere. Slowly, Feremont’s hands fell. He waited.

Sidheag pointed at him as the fire licked at them both.

She waited as the flames closed around them both.

Sidheag waited for the fire. The [Necromancer] looked at the licking tongues of heat, and then at the undead. He laughed hysterically. The man looked at Sidheag.

“We love them. That is why they hunted us and killed us. I treated them so poorly, though. Come. I will make my amends.”

Feremont spread his arms and walked forwards. The dead tore at him. He did not stop laughing, even as Sidheag turned away. She walked towards the flames, and the dead stood, task done. They waited, as the fire engulfed them all.

Then they all burned.

They burned. The magical light in the undead’s eyes slowly faded as their bodies were consumed by the fire. Sidheag heard their souls whispering as they went. Or so she believed. She waited. Waited as the inferno closed around her. To claim the last sacrifice.

It never did. A hand reached down. No, two hands. From the sky. Sidheag looked up, and two ghosts took her arms. They lifted her up.

Dalius and Arteis. The flames engulfed the ground below her in a second—roared as they erased Feremont. The last of the undead.

Then—they went out. And the rain kept falling. Slowly, slowly, Sidheag drifted down. Her skin should have frozen and cracked—but it did not. She looked up and Arteis smiled. Her grip was…

Warm.

Sidheag touched the ground amid the ash in the field. She looked around, but nothing was left. No

[Necromancer]. No undead.

It was over.

——

Cara stood there a long while, as the fires grew and the smoke travelled up into the sky. As the dead of Afiele, so long kept here by death magic and torment, were put to rest.

Yet the ghosts remained. They knelt, to the little [Lord] of the Fields. To the living, as the [Princess] of Calanfer watched. Along with the [Knight] who was no longer alone.

But the guilt remained. The dead remained dead. And no one could truly bring them back. Cara wiped at her eyes.

Who was she weeping for? Him? Them all? She didn’t know. The two ghosts were circling the fields, looking for any stragglers. In the distance, the living had collapsed. Cara heard nothing but the falling rain.

Until she heard the faint crunch of footsteps on ash and turned.

“Dalius…?”

But it was not a ghost. Cara saw something…someone stumbling through the ash-field. She saw a little girl, wandering about, eyes blank.

Sasi’s gaze was blank as Cara stared at her. The little girl stared around. Searching for…the