"You keep the candles lit," he said.
"Yes."
"All of them?"
"Volunteers maintain them. People who lost someone, mostly. Or people who want to mark that the loss was real." Satou was looking at the markers. "We don't move past grief quickly here. We keep it visible. It doesn't help the dead but it helps the living remember why we build."
Aldric was quiet.
He thought about what Edric had said on the road — he's building something. And he will protect it with everything he has. He'd understood this intellectually. Standing at the edge of this field, looking at five hundred fifty-nine names, feeling the weight of what that number actually meant—
He understood it differently now.
"I've seen enough," he said.
Satou looked at him.
"Not enough of the settlement," Aldric clarified. "Enough to understand what you're protecting." He met the flame-like eyes directly. "And why any alliance that involves it needs to be taken completely seriously."
Satou held his gaze for a moment.
