Sorrow sat heavy, but only if you were breathing. Here, where breath came hard, there was no room for that weight.
Out past dawn, under a flat sky, they moved in step - two hundred where three ought to have stood. Spaces gaped between them, silent, unspoken. Those leading saw but said nothing. Paper numbers held firm: the old total, swollen by ghosts, still stamped in ledgers. So absence stayed invisible. Death remained unofficial. Like life down in the Low Quarter, it simply didn't register.
Forward through the march Kael moved, gaze fixed ahead, grief lodged inside as if he'd gulped down glass and never caught his breath. It stayed with him. Not suppression, he thought - suppression needs struggle, pressure building beneath. Instead, delay. An agreement made quietly: the pain mattered, deserved space, just not here, where stillness could mean death.
Maybe that moment would never arrive. Still, he moved ahead into tougher ground where chances slipped away. Onward he went.
Out of nowhere, Bren broke the silence by speaking Sorin's name - first mention since that day in the fight.
Out there, mid-stride, he spoke plain. Between two ridges the path widened just enough. The group settled into step then, finding a pace that let words slip through - soft ones, meant only for nearby ears. Walking came before conflict, and during that gap, talk found space.
"Sorin would have had something to say about this road," Bren said.
Each stride brought its own complaint. Spongy earth gripped the soles, dragging feet down like cold hands tugging after rain.
Kael thought about it. "He would have named it," he said. "Given it a terrible name."
Behind them, Orren spoke up. "The Misery Corridor," he said.
"Too grand," Ysse said. "He would have picked something smaller. More personal. The Boot-Eater."
Bren spoke the name again - The Boot-Eater. Silence came after, thick and slow. Later, almost quiet, he added that he felt the absence
"Yes," Kael said.
Just like me," Ysse replied.
"Yes," said Orren.
On they walked. Their boots tugged against the dirt path. Grey sky hung above, unchanged since the valley, giving no sign. Spaces between people remained empty. Sorrow sat untouched - close, true, held back like something saved for later, though there may never be a time.
Out there, where the path crumbled under tired feet, one voice rose - not loud, just clear. His name slipped into the air, carried by breath that had little else to offer. It landed like a stone in still water: small, then rippling. The moment stretched, thin but unbroken. Not magic. Not rescue. Just sound meeting silence. And somehow, weight shifted.