Maren broke.
She collapsed against her mother's chest, sobbing so hard her whole body shook, and the healer held her the way she always had, one hand on her hair, the other rubbing slow circles on her back with the practiced motions of someone who had comforted this particular child through a lifetime of scraped knees and broken hearts.
"I'm still me, you ridiculous girl," she said softly. "Stop getting snot on my robes."
The old officer on the platform had found his son in the crowd, a boy barely old enough to hold the short sword strapped to his hip. The boy was frozen, his cheeks wet, his mouth working without sound.
The officer's stern face softened. "I'm here, boy. Different, yes, but here. Stop crying. You'll rust your scabbard."
A sob broke through the crowd. Then another. Then a wave of them, as the people of Whisperfield looked up at the platform and recognized the dead they'd been mourning.
