He carried her out himself. Rashka offered once. Maelin offered at the top of the stair, when his wounded arm nearly failed. Luvztospoon shifted Sevenofknine against his good shoulder and kept walking. Berrik waited with the wagon beneath the outer gate. When he saw them, he put down the reins. For once, the goblin had nothing to say.
The hooded traveler climbed into the wagon and spread a folded blanket over the boards. Luvztospoon laid Sevenofknine on it, then sat beside her all the way to the chapel. Maelin had covered her face. Halfway down the road, he lifted the cloth and looked at her. Rashka turned her horse away so he could have that moment alone.
✦
They buried her on the rise behind the chapel.
Snow had blown into the sheltered hollow where the grave was marked. The earth beneath it was stubborn and threaded with stones, and the first blows of the pick rang loudly enough to carry down the hill. Nobody tried to fill the silence with words. Dorrin set the tools where Luvztospoon could reach them. Rashka took the heavier end of the work when his wounded shoulder stopped answering him.
Maelin had found a clean length of cloth to cover Seven's armor. Berrik stood near the gate with his hat in both hands, turning it over whenever he thought someone might speak to him. Mara kept Ellie close, but the child slipped free and walked toward the grave carrying a mitten. The people who had survived because Seven stayed behind had come to say goodbye, and even that mercy was hard for Luvztospoon to bear.
The ground was frozen. Luvztospoon broke it with a pick until his bandage soaked through. Then Rashka took the tool from him and gave it to Korr, who had returned from escorting the prisoners. No one asked Luvztospoon to stand aside. They gave him the shovel when the hardest work was done.
Dorrin came from the western village with Mara and Ellie. He had brought a narrow board cut from seasoned timber and a hammer wrapped in cloth.
“Stone when the roads open,” he said. “This will do until then.”
He carved her name carefully. Luvztospoon watched every letter. Sevenofknine. Below it, Dorrin waited for him to choose the words. He thought of the quarry. The prisoners. Nessa holding the bent nail. All the people who had walked away because Seven refused to leave them behind. He thought of the life she had wanted and would not have.
“Beloved,” he said at last.
Dorrin nodded and carved it.
✦
Rashka had brought her runeblade from the lower hall. Luvztospoon laid it beside her before they lowered the lid. The runes were dark. He smoothed a loose strand of hair back from her face. There was something he had meant to tell her at the inn years ago. Something about how she laughed in her sleep. He had forgotten it until now, when there was nowhere to put the memory.
He wanted another minute. He wanted a month, a morning, the rest of a fishing lesson. Maelin stood beside him without hurrying him. At last, he tucked the faded ribbon around his own wrist.
“I'll keep it,” he whispered.
He closed the lid.
✦
Ellie put the red mitten on the wooden marker. Mara started to take it back. Luvztospoon shook his head. The child looked at him.
“She found it.”
He knelt so she would not have to look so far up.
“She did.”
“Will she be cold?”
Mara put a hand over her mouth. Luvztospoon looked at the grave, then back at Ellie.
“No,” he said. “Not anymore.”
The child took his hand for a moment. Then she went back to her mother.
✦
The hooded traveler stood at the edge of the gathering until the last earth had been laid. No face showed beneath the hood. No name had been offered. When the others returned to the chapel, Luvztospoon remained by the marker. The traveler stayed too. After a while, Luvztospoon spoke without turning.
“Thank you for helping them.”
A slight movement of the hood answered him.
“I don't know who you are.”
The wind stirred the cloak. He looked at the gloved hands, then the hidden face.
“You can tell me when you're ready.”
The traveler inclined their head once. They stood together until the light began to fail.
✦
For three days, Luvztospoon slept in the room behind the chapel.
Sometimes he did not sleep at all. He sat with his back to the wall and listened to the small routines of the building: Maelin drawing water, Dorrin shaking snow from his boots, the bell moving when the wind struck the tower. He tried to measure the days by those sounds. On the second morning, he set out two cups before he remembered there was nobody who would tease him about crushing one.
People came to sit with him. Dorrin brought a cracked stool to repair and worked on it for an hour without asking a question. Berrik arrived with an inventory that required no reply. Maelin left the door open so he could hear the chapel rather than the silence of a shut room. Their kindness did not make the grief smaller. It made it possible to remain in the room with it.
He woke whenever someone opened the door. Each time, for the first instant, he expected Sevenofknine. Then he remembered. Maelin changed his bandage and made him move his arm before the stiffness could settle permanently. He obeyed without arguing. That worried her more than his anger had. On the fourth morning, he found two cups on the table. He stared at them until Maelin came in.
“One's mine,” she said gently.
He nodded. She sat across from him and poured the tea. After a long time, he asked, “Did she suffer?” Maelin set down the pot.
“At the end, she knew you were there.”
He looked at the ribbon.
“That isn't what I asked.”
“I know.”
The priest folded her hands.
“The binding hurt her. I won't tell you otherwise. When it ended, the pain ended too.”
He closed his eyes. She stayed until he opened them again.
✦
Berrik left a folded paper beside Luvztospoon's sword. It looked like an invoice. He nearly put it aside, then recognized the goblin's uneven handwriting.
\Bridge repairs. One horse. Two wagons. Grain. Several distressing conversations.\
Every line had been crossed out. At the bottom: \No payment due.\ Luvztospoon found him outside checking the wagon wheels.
“You forgot the cup.”
Berrik kept looking at the axle.
“I've decided that cup was defective.”
“It wasn't.”
“I am the merchant. I decide what was defective.”
Luvztospoon leaned against the wagon. For a little while, they watched Maelin sweep snow from the chapel step.
“I was going to keep looking,” he said.
Berrik glanced at him.
“For her. Whatever happened, I thought I would keep looking.”
The goblin set down his wrench.
“You found her, Luvz.”
He had not shortened the name before. Luvztospoon looked away. Berrik gave him time.
✦
Reports came from the western village a week later. The pond beside the foreman's lodge had frozen over again without a voice beneath it. No blue light showed at the quarry. Men sent to inspect the collapse had found the old shaft choked with stone. Hollow Crown stood empty.
Maelin copied the warnings from the ledgers and locked the originals beneath her chapel floor. The marks would be remembered so someone else would not mistake them for a promise. Nessa sent a short letter from the village. She had found work helping a woman who mended coats. There was a small room above the shop. The door had a latch she could lift from either side.
Luvztospoon read that part twice. He took the letter to the grave and told Sevenofknine. The wind moved the red mitten against the wood. He did not pretend it was an answer.
✦
His shoulder began to heal. There was a day when he could lift the sword without pain. He felt guilty for noticing. Another day, Ellie laughed at something Dorrin said, and Luvztospoon smiled before remembering that Seven was not there to hear it. He hated that moment. He hated the silence that followed it more.
Maelin found him repairing a broken stool in the kitchen. He had taken it apart and put it together twice. The legs still stood unevenly.
“You can stop,” she said.
“Someone will fall off it.”
“Someone has been falling off it for six years.”
He looked down at the crooked wood. After a while, he cut one leg shorter. The stool stood steady. He set it beside the stove. Maelin used it that evening. Neither mentioned Seven's table.
✦
Rashka returned when the first thaw softened the road. Fen was recovering at the station. Torren had been given his first proper watch assignment and was taking it so seriously that Korr had started moving the camp kettle to test whether he noticed.
“He notices,” Rashka said.
Luvztospoon stood beneath the chapel eaves while she checked her horse's girth.
“You're leaving again.”
“Eastern road. A convoy went missing.”
He looked toward the grave.
“More keepers?”
“We don't know. Bandits, undead, something worse. We'll find out.”
She took a folded strip of red cloth from her saddlebag. The Horde's mark had been stitched into it.
“There's a place with us if you want one.”
He stared at the cloth.
“You don't know what you're asking.”
Rashka thought of the lower hall. Of him holding Sevenofknine while everyone else waited.
“I know some of it.”
“I won't be good company.”
“Korr snores. Fen cheats at dice. Torren thinks polishing armor is a conversation. We manage.”
Luvztospoon almost smiled. Then he looked at his sword. War would ask things of him that he understood. A road to hold. An enemy in front of him. People to bring back. There were dangers in how much he wanted that simplicity. He could feel them already. Rashka laid the cloth on the chapel step.
“I'll leave at dawn.”
She gave him the choice and went inside.
✦
That night, Luvztospoon sat beside Sevenofknine's grave. The red mitten had faded where the weather touched it. Dorrin's letters remained clear. He told her about Fen. About Nessa's room. About the stool that finally stood straight. Then he told her about Rashka's offer.
“I don't know how to stay here,” he said.
He waited, though he knew there would be no voice in the earth. After a while, he leaned forward and rested his hand against the marker.
“I don't know how to leave either.”
The ribbon stirred at his wrist. He remembered her saying she wanted boring days. He could not give her those days now. He could keep someone else from losing every one of theirs. That was not enough to make the grief smaller. It was enough to stand.
✦
At dawn, he fastened the Horde's cloth to his shoulder plate. Maelin gave him fresh bandages. Berrik told him where to send a letter if he ever learned to write an acceptable inventory. Dorrin promised a stone marker when the quarry road could be traveled safely. The hooded traveler waited beyond the gate. Luvztospoon looked toward the hidden face.
“Will I see you again?”
The traveler gave no answer he could read with certainty. They stepped aside to let him pass. He did not ask for a name. Rashka waited on the road with a spare mount and two soldiers. Luvztospoon turned back once. The chapel stood quiet beneath the pale sky. Behind it, the rise caught the first sunlight. He touched the ribbon.
“Side by side,” he whispered.
Then he went to join the others. Rashka handed him the reins.
“Ready?”
“No.”
She nodded. They took the eastern road together. Sevenofknine was gone. He would carry that truth through every battle waiting for him. He had loved her while they lived, and found her after death. Now he would have to learn how to live in the time she had saved for him. For that morning, he kept pace with the Horde's riders.
The ribbon held.
He had tied it beneath the edge of his armor, where the leather would keep it safe from rain and careless hands. The knot was not the one he had first taught Seven. It was the uneven, stubborn version she had worn because she liked it better.
The road ahead bent out of sight between dark pines. He did not know what he would be when he reached the next camp, or what he would be asked to do when he got there. For now there were riders on either side of him and a place in their line. There would be another morning, and he would have to meet it. He eased his horse forward without looking back.