Wenyanga stared at their hands, scrubbed clean as they were, at rings gleaming on each finger. Ten simple bands of white gold, bright against dark skin, engraved with symbols from a language that didn't exist.
Read in sequence, they told the story of the wearer's death.
Wenyanga's hands dropped. Sunlight passed through the blinds of their window seat, cutting their robes in slates of amber. Grief could, in quiet moments like this, make anyone forget to breathe. That wasn't half as dangerous as forgetting to cycle.
They inhaled air that was stale but cool, looking out at the town. A wisp of Air aura slipped under their liver, curling around a sphere no larger than a teardrop. The force of its spin stretched the wisp into rings of pure Ether along its orbit.
Wenyanga exhaled as refined mana spiralled into their soul.
The smells of a little desert town crept through the blinds -- dust on a hot breeze, roasting meat, and a whiff of smoke from a fire nearby. Someone sang over the noise of the town square below, a funeral song.
Wenyanga elbowed the window closed.
"You're just going to sit there, then?" Thula asked, in a voice as gentle as her name. A tea tray slammed onto a table. "Let strangers sing his funeral songs on your behalf?"
Wenyanga stared at the crowd below through narrow slits. The rings on their fingers hummed in quiet harmony.
"After everything we shared," Thula went on, "you'd hand his eulogy off to a priest who's never seen his face?"
"Why speak to a corpseless pyre?" Wenyanga winced. "I'm sorry."
A cold, silent rebuke hung over the room, stretching from the bedside table to the window seat.
After a moment, Thula sat down. "Come eat, then we'll go pay Tello the respects he deserves."
He deserves more than that, Wenyanga thought, fingers flexing. More than I can pay in one lifetime.
YOU ARE READING
Earthwitch
FantasyAnele is dying, but that's nothing new. As an Earthwitch with a shattered soul, she's spent most of her life trying not to, but lately, the void eating through her keeps growing. And now, she's caught the attention of something worse than death -- a...
