I ignore it.
Another soldier approaches. An older woman this time, a captain by the insignia fused to her armor. She died defending a position that was already lost.
“They ran.” Her words carry decades of bitterness. “The men under my command. I ordered them to hold the line, and theyran. I stayed. I fought. I died—” Her voice breaks. “And no one ever knew. The battle reports said we were overrun. The reports said there was nothing anyone could have done. They never mentioned that I gave them time to escape. They never?—”
“I hear you.” I step closer to her. Close enough to see the wound that killed her—a spear thrust through the gap in her armor, aimed at her spine. Someone attacked her from behind while she was busy fighting enemies in front. “You were a hero. You deserved to be remembered as one.”
“Then remember me.” Her demand carries the edge of command, even after centuries of death. “My name was Sethara Voss. I held the eastern ridge for three hours with four soldiers against a force of two hundred. Remember that.”
“Sethara Voss.” I repeat the name, committing it to memory. “Eastern ridge. Three hours. Four soldiers. I’ll remember.”
She studies me for a long moment. Then she nods, once, and follows the first soldier into dissolution. Another point of light rising toward the sky.
Another fracture appearing in the King’s composite form.
“Stop this.” The King’s command reverberates through the battlefield, but its authority is crumbling. Soldiers are turning toward me now—dozens of them, hundreds, drawn by the light of their comrades’ release. “I speak for you. I demand justice on your behalf?—”
“You demand blood.” I don’t raise my voice, but it echoes anyway. “You demand vengeance. But they don’t want blood. They don’t want vengeance. They want?—”
“To be heard.” The voice belongs to a soldier in ancient armor, his features so decayed he’s barely recognizable as human. “To say the things we never said. To let go.”
The King screams.
THIRTY-NINE
DROKHAR
It’s a sound like a thousand dying throats crying out at once, like metal scraping against stone, like every pyre I’ve ever lit suddenly roaring to life. The soldiers nearest the throne flinch back. Some of them collapse, their forms dissolving not into light but into the raw material of the King’s body—pulled back into the collective against their will.
But others resist.
They’re coming to me now. A flood of the dead, pouring across the blood-soaked plains, each one carrying centuries of unspoken words. I don’t have time to listen to all of them—there are too many, thousands upon thousands, more than any single lifetime could contain—but I try. Gods help me, I try.
A soldier who died wondering if his mother ever forgave him for leaving. I hear you.
A medic who bled out trying to save men who were already dead. I hear you.
A boy—no more than fifteen—who joined the army to escape a father who beat him and died in his first battle, terrified and alone. I hear you.
A woman who led a cavalry charge that bought her regiment time to retreat. She never knew they made it. I hear you.
Twins who died in the same battle, neither knowing the other had fallen until they met in this realm. They wanted to say goodbye to each other. I tell them they can say it now, and they dissolve together, their lights intertwining as they rise.
An old sergeant who spent his final breaths trying to shield a wounded private. The private didn’t survive either, but the sergeant’s sacrifice mattered. It always mattered. I hear you.
The King’s form fractures wider with each release. Faces disappear from its surface. Arms that were reaching toward me go slack and fade. The throne itself seems to shrink, the fused weapons and merged corpses pulling away from an entity that no longer commands their loyalty.
“How does it feel?”
Aradya’s whisper brushes my ear. She’s moved closer while I was focused on the soldiers, her hand finding the small of my back, her body a steady point in the chaos of the dissolving dead.
“Horrifying.” I don’t look away from the soldier currently speaking—a woman who died saving her sister’s children and never learned if they survived. “Necessary.”
“You’re doing what should have been done all along.”
“I’m doing what I should have done instead of burning them.” The words cost me more than any confession I’ve ever made. “Listening. Acknowledging. Letting them rest.”
The woman finishes her story. I tell her the children lived—another guess, another hope—and she dissolves into light. The next soldier steps forward before the glow has fully faded.