Free Justice by Rhiannon Paille

her belongings were in the room. Most of them had been moved when she traveled to Nandaro to stay with the Kiirar. But herbs were aromatic, and Kaliel had always smelled like a mix of them. Sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter. He loved both.
    He lingered for moments longer, paralyzed by the force of her imprint. Memories stacked upon each other flooded into the back of his mind, creating both dizziness and discomfort. The longer he stayed, the more he chanced another breakdown. He absorbed what pieces of her he could. When the room was no longer soothing he drifted back to the room he had been stashed in after the battle.
    He paused at the hallway and peered down its length. He had no desire to talk to Melianna. He couldn’t say anything about Kaliel. Avristar felt like a facade, the dead calm of a brittle truth as fragile as his sanity. He drifted into the servants’ hall. It was empty, full of echoes of the past. The blood had been mopped up, but the stench of war remained. Krishani walked to the archway and paused, pressing his hand against the stone. He closed his eyes and saw a glimmer of the boy running in from the stables, screaming, “They are coming!”
    He moved through the courtyard and past the stables. The air was cool, dusk approaching. White clouds drifted overhead as he scanned the field. It was littered with patches of white, green and red. The snow had melted, blades of grass springing up from underneath. Amidst the grass were bloodstains. Krishani felt sick with grief as he warded off the memories stinging his eyes.
    Flecks of ash mixed into the haze appearing at the edge of the horizon, the sun giving way to night. Krishani quickened his pace as he stumbled in the direction of the mountain. The single worst memory wrapped itself around his mind. Istar stopped him. It was a past that would haunt him forever. He stared across the field, the tree line too far to make out from his vantage point. The wind fiercely blew across the fields, threatening to bring the clouds above into a maelstrom, another outbreak of snow. He trailed along the ground until he stepped on a small mound and crashed into the earth, his cheek colliding with the soft soil. His hands found the ground as he pushed himself up and looked at what he had tripped on.
    A tiny grave.
    He had carelessly scattered a pattern of stones on top of the grave. Startled, he picked up the stones and placed them precariously on the mound. Krishani shook his head and tried to focus.
    Along the west side of the Elmare Castle was a makeshift graveyard. Rows and rows of little mounds of mud sprouted from the ground, each of them decorated with a pattern of stones. Some had offerings, crafts, herbs, flowers, while others had nothing. The Farewell Ceremony. Krishani vaguely remembered mention of it when he lived in Amersil. He hadn’t been alive long enough to attend one, and his stomach lurched thinking about this one.
    Krishani wended through the rows, his heart feeling heavier with each mound he passed. He tripped over his own feet as he tried not to step on the mounds. When he found the edge of the graveyard he almost breathed a sigh of relief, but there was one last grave, in a row by itself. He fell on his knees in front of it.
    A violet flower rested on top of the stones.
    They made a grave for Kaliel.
    The last rays of light tinted the land, the moon waxed towards full, growing more than a crescent. He opened his eyes, but his vision was blurry. The flower looked like water-colors smeared across canvas. Vengeance crept into his heart as he clenched and released dirt.
    “I couldn’t listen to the farewell ceremony,” a voice interjected.
    Krishani flinched away from the voice and slumped into the mud. The hairy feorn loomed over him. He recognized Pux as Kaliel’s friend from Evennses. He shot Pux an expression, a mix of contempt and bewilderment.
    “They bid her farewell?”
    Pux nodded and gestured to the others. “And everyone else.”
    Krishani