Many of them were male, with the same broad shoulders and thick bones of the first skeleton we’d seen. But there were others scattered around with smaller frames: women, or possibly children in the case of the slightest. Like the one who peeked out from behind the tail of a man, with the small body mostly lost in rock.

The fey slowly walked over to it, and knelt down in front of it, as it was near the bottom of the wall. There wasn’t much to see, just the tiny face, smaller than my spread hand, and the tops of a pair of delicate shoulders. The face looked strangely curious, staring at me as I stared back, and once again, I had the impression of our gaze meeting across the ages. I felt a shiver run down my spine, a hard one, but the fey’s attention had been caught by something else.

There was a rope of pearls around the girl’s skeletal neck, not big ones, not even child sized ones. But tiny things, barely larger than seed pearls, that had been woven into the shape of flowers. The ends of the necklace were buried in stone, which was why it had survived, still caught in place after all these years. The fey reached out, and I instinctively shrank back.

Don’t touch it! I thought. Don’t, don’t, don’t! I didn’t want to see this girl’s trauma, experience her last moments, or feel the press of the rock that had stopped her chest from expanding, suffocating her.

I didn’t want to be buried alive.

But the only thing I felt when he stripped off a gauntlet, and pressed both fingers and forehead against the stone, were the tiny, smooth bumps of the pearl flowers.

We stayed like that for a while. I didn’t know what he was feeling, as I was too stunned to even try to read his thoughts. I was wondering how many hours somebody must have spent weaving such an exquisite jewel. She had been loved, this girl, possibly by the man who had died trying to protect her.

And who had failed nonetheless, because how do you outrun a wave of stone?

It didn’t look like anyone had. And she hadn’t been an aberration: no one here looked like a soldier. I couldn’t see much from the fey’s current position, but there hadn’t been any bodies dressed for combat when we came in. There’d been no weapons or armor in sight, and jewels had still gleamed dully at a few throats or wrists.

And if the jewels remained, any weapons should have, too. Or their impressions, if this was so long ago to have rotted away metal. Yet I hadn’t seen any.