The Dead Dove Locker -- "I don't know what I expected."

[Mamorien]

Headless Over Heels.

A convocation was held for the dead in Shaheill’s square, once the last of the wounded were taken to their own beds or gave up their battles. The mourners insisted on bringing their unlit guests to the front of the crowd to stand with the banged-up, bandaged defenders. Every crowd that Seth had attended lately, in the shadow of the scaffold, had come to observe an execution. Odd to gather now, when the killing had already been done.

The dozen dead were arrayed in a semicircle before the scaffwood, wrapped in plant-fiber shrouds. You could tell which were Shaheilli by the trinkets and remembrances their weeping families had laden them with. The warriors who had joined from the further villages and garrisons had only the flowers and the generic icons about them, or scrimshawed tokens furnished by their comrades; nobody else knew much about them, save for how they had died.

Saint-Worship preached the sacredness of returning the departed shells to the cycles of the earth, just as the spirit returned to the Wheel. The burial cloaks were made to rot with the corpses. The bodies were bare beneath them and dusted with an apothecarial concoction meant to soften them and speed the return to loam.

There were no popmite farms in Shaheill; otherwise the shrouded bodies might have been lowered into them, to feed the insatiable larvae. The dead would be buried in the fields instead, that they might make the crops grow. The il Teremis who had died, they’d put below the rhubarb.

Moora and Alain they’d burn, to keep the unlit blood from climbing the roots of their crops. A smaller pyre, separate from Enna-Belum’s vast and foul blaze, surrounded by charm poles and laden flowers.

A pretty saintspeaker cenobiyant stood atop the scaffold where Annalise would usually tread, her hair bound up in the six needles, her eyes painted with the forest-green lines of the lakrimat. Her hands and feet dipped in the ceremonial mud. She was young, barely out of her teens, and on her face was the fundamental tranquility of a girl at a funeral for whom death would not be real for a decade or more.

O Preliyat!

She sang, high and lyrical:

O Preliyat!

Oculat tuat Rotama purganiy itery et Mundum conspizya

O, Preliyat!

Risat tuati Rotama silakti itery et Mundum audizya

Preliyat was Necrocantati for warrior. O Preliyat was a song for the valorous dead of the Legion, exhorting them to move swiftly through the wheel and bless the world with their eyes and voices once more. The carved and lacquered charm-statues, held aloft on poles by the saintspeaker’s solemn akathists, were Legion saints: St. Silas of the Sword, St. Kander of the Seal and Scale. But these weren’t legionnaires they were composting, and they’d sworn no oaths. Most weren’t even Hermandati. They were farmers and farriers and families, and the Legion was supposed to keep them safe, and it hadn’t. And now they were gone.

This was a show of respect, probably, or meant as one. From the glistening tears in the crowd and the voices joining in the song, it was working that way. Seth averted his eyes to the dirt. His singing voice was golden now, thanks to his hexentat. Something stopped him from lending it.

Annalise caught his downcast glance and gave him the tiniest of nods. Her fingers threaded between his. She wasn’t singing either.

Why wear a suit of plate to the beach?

By the service’s end, departure from Shaheill was out of the question. Celebrations had begun, and tearful reunions and copious drinking, but this was not for the al Ydrises and Seth il Gutierre. Unanimously and voicelessly, they trundled their exhausted selves to bed.

There were rooms for them at the roadhouse, and the twins gladly took them to avoid having to clean the clutter the thieving seraph had left. Annalise and Seth took advantage of the inn’s bathtubs, but then retired to their tent. Seth had come to prefer it to a roadhouse bedroom. He could see the stars faintly through the fabric, and the cold night air forced him closer against the big soft furnace of Annalise al Ydris’s unlit heart.

Annalise crawled into the quilt with him, and pulled him halfway atop her. Her hands wandered to their preferred places on the small of his back and the nape of his neck. “I wanna fuck you,” she mumbled.

“I wanna get fucked,” he responded, as numbed by weariness as she was.

Her responding laugh was heavy with fatigue. “But I’m so tired.”

He kissed her collarbone. “I’ll still be fuckable in the morning.”

They managed a kiss, at least, slovenly and sloppy, and okay, now Seth was a little hard, but he was still mostly exhausted.

“Can I ask you something?” he whispered.

She nodded.

“What do you tell them? The ones who are afraid before you execute them.”

“Sorry, Seth. Can’t say. It’s not something for the living to hear.” She tightened her hold on him. Her fingers made grooves in his silver skin. “And I’m gonna keep you alive for a long, long time. If I can keep you from crashing bleeding stormships into all our problems.”

“Thank you for letting me go.”

“Thank you for coming back,” she replied. “And thank the Saints Anna didn’t pull your bleeding head off.”

“About Anna.” Seth hesitated, then plowed on. “I don’t think there should be a you that hurts, Annalise. I get that it’s what she’s for, I just… you’ve seen so much, and been through so much, and you got your head back above water. No pun intended. Maybe there’s a way for her, too.”

“G’way outta that, Seth. It’s no problem. If I’m Anna, it’s cause there’s some screeching evil to be stabbed up, so that’s already made a right mess of whatever day’s to be had.”

“Have you ever put her on and…I dunno. Had a vacation?”

His eyes were shut now, but he heard the skepticism tinging her voice. “Why wear a suit of plate to the beach?”

“I feel bad for her, I guess. And I wonder if there’s a way to make her feel better.”

“My wee goldenheart.” Another sleepy chuckle. “Her is me. Remember? You’re making her feel better right now.”

If that’s true, Seth thought, then her pain’s still inside you, too. Even when her head was bleached bone, that same hopeless hurt dwelt in his lover. Anna just brought it closer to the surface.

“I guess so,” he said aloud, but to himself, he swore a private oath, and beseeched St. Kander to witness it:

He would find a way to make that mean, miserable Murani huntress smile. He’d seen its ghost a few times on Anna’s face, in the moments before she’d shut it down. He’d bring it back and bid it stay. He’d make Anna happy.

Somehow.

And okay, he’d have to do it while she fought whatever seraph she’d been screwed on to kill. Such details were best addressed in the moment.

Maybe they said a few more words to one another, maybe they didn’t; the next thing Seth could remember was waking up in the middle of the night on his back. The stars were glittering emeralds beneath the deathspell’s dome. He knew what it meant, by now, to be roused awake like this. Annalise had turned onto her side and was twitching and whimpering, caught in one of her fits.

He inched closer to her, bracing himself. Here came the springloaded bearhug, and she snatched him into her arms. It was painfully tight for a few seconds, and then Annalise’s spasming muscles relaxed—not enough to free him, but he didn’t mind. Ease returned to her.

He made himself as comfortable as he could in her protective clutch, her massive tattooed arm replacing his pillow.

He kissed her nose. She’d stayed asleep through the tremors. He whispered “I love you” anyway.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/173313...o-preliyat
https://www.scribblehub.com/read/2385004...r/2586403/