Jess felt alone as he remained on the ice pier looking out into the gray waters of the internal sea. If only he could just be a statue. He looked up to the looming solid sky. The ceiling hung blue and white, lit by artificial suns planted inside holes cut into the ice, balls of illumination that directed heat and light downward throughout the crystalline shield.

Shivering, Jess went to see if he could comfort his little sister before the funeral began. He had many duties to perform before the day was over.

The visiting clan leaders and the surviving members of the Tamblyn family gathered out on the ice shelf. Plumas was silent and muffled. A faint mist sublimated from the icepack and wafted over the still, quicksilver waters like the breath of a sleeping dragon.

Old Bram looked like a stuffed scarecrow, wearing layers of vests, jackets, and a tattered cloak over his shoulders. He stood on an ice dock several meters above the smooth water. Jess and Tasia remained close beside him, with Cesca only a step behind.

A boxlike raft floated in the water, made of expensive pressed cellulose. Each plank had been imported from Roamer traders, brought down and assembled here. Much of the cost had been donated by Speaker Okiah and her clan, though Bram insisted he would pay her back. Inside the floating container lay an effigy of Ross Tamblyn, wrapped in the few items of old clothing he had left behind when he and his father had parted ways.

Jess had offered to give the eulogy, but Bram would not hear of it. After invoking the wisdom of the Guiding Star, the old man spoke in a thin voice that echoed across the water. “This is what remains of my son Ross. No wreckage was found of the Blue Sky Mine, heinously destroyed by unknown enemies.”

Sinews stood out like ropes along Bram’s neck. “Still, we have our memories of Ross, our fond stories, the times we spent together …” His voice dropped, then cracked. “And our guilt for the things we did not do, and which now can never be done.

“Since we have nothing else of my son Ross, we will make do.” Bram raised his gaze to the solid sky. “This is our memorial to him.”

The other Roamers echoed, “This is our memorial to him.”

Jess and Tasia stepped forward, each snapping the end off an air-activated ignitor. They held the bright flames like candles above the sluggish, cold ocean. Bram Tamblyn reached into one of his numerous pockets and withdrew another ignitor, so that their three flames blazed together.

“Ross was my oldest child. His fires burned bright and hot—” Bram’s voice quavered. “Yes, Ross was hot indeed. But his light and his life were snuffed out too quickly.” In unison, the three tossed their ignitors into the raft, which had been padded with woody icekelp fronds, now soaked with volatile fuel gel.