And it had all begun long before this. Hadn’t they been spending these last moons simply looking the other way while friends and relations were denounced and hauled away? Hadn’t many of them been willing to make accusations of their own to prove their “loyalty” and turn suspicious eyes away from themselves?

And why? Because they were too attached to possessions, to the city itself, to flee? Because it was easy to look away when the Magi were only hurting the foreigners, or the nobles, or the people in the next Ring that you didn’t know, and because when you looked the other way once, it was easy to keep doing so?

Or because it was easier to believe the lies that the Magi told? Easier not to think for one’s own self? Easier to accept at face value everything that was told to you?

It gnawed at him all the way back, and when he and Avatre finally landed in the gray light of dawn, he felt as if he could not sleep until he had cleaned his body of the stench of burning. He went down into the cavern, and took a rare bath, scrubbing himself until his skin felt raw to be rid of the smell.

He went to find Aket-ten, but she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe that was just as well. He wasn’t sure he could offer her any kind of comfort, when she had just seen a place where she knew people burning to the ground.

When he staggered off to his bed, Avatre was already asleep, and as he gazed on her, he felt a moment of envy to see her, so calm and peaceful, with no nightmares to trouble her sleep.

They certainly troubled his, that night, and for many nights to come.

And yet, sooner than he would have thought, things got back to normal, or mostly normal.

Perhaps it was because he had not actually seen the temple burning. Only Ari had endured that particular sight, and maybe his experience in fighting had hardened him somewhat to such things. Maybe it was because, once the last of the Winged Ones arrived, there was another shrine made to the memories and spirits of those who had been lost.

Maybe it was nothing more than time—time which was, of a certainty, filled.

It would have been far worse had Aket-ten actually witnessed the horror of the burning temple, but the others had turned her back at the halfway point, and all she knew was that it had burned, and those who were left, with it. She sought Kiron out the night after their return to Sanctuary, and spent all of it weeping herself sick in his arms. It was a very long night; perhaps the longest in his life, save only one. He would have spared her that distress if he could have.