---- It should have rained. It had done so without end in his last day, but here in her first without him, the crimson sun was blinding. It wasn't right.
Ashtik stood vigil over his soon-to-be abandoned grave. The letters were carved deep into the headstone. "CAROLET," it read. Some other words lay beneath, but she had never learned to parse them.
"A knight, a brother, a hero," Evara whispered. Ash had thought herself alone until she said the words. The younger sister took her elder's black hand into her own and rested her head against Ash's shoulder.
"Is that what it says?" Ash sombrely asked.
--"Aye. The Elder thought it appropriate."
"It's not," Ash coldly said.
--"No?"
--"They've buried him: they'll have his corpse rot in the dark. Caro was a free knight in life. He'd seen every corner of the continent. He deserves to see them again. He deserves a pyre."
"I think we've seen enough charred corpses," Ev weakly protested.
"It's not about the corpse. He deserves to see the distant seas, to stroke his hands through a mare's winter coat... His body can't, but maybe his ashes could. Maybe he could take to some summer breeze and float along the world, chasing the sunset forevermore." Ash knelt before the stone and dug her tainted hand into the soil.
"Maybe... his spirit is unbound and floats in much the same way," Evara suggested. "It would be a fine epilogue."
"More than spending eternity in a damp hole, at least," Ash agreed.
--- The silence hung between them for nearly an hour, but quiet was a distant dream. Soldiers rattled afar and smiths worked their forges. A city might have made less noise than this little keep. The clangs of training yards echoed from the great stone walls that encircled them.
"Ash... I think it's time we headed back," Evara suggested. "The feast is at sunloss."
"The feast," Ash thought with a dreadful sigh. There was no thought less appealing. A hundred rowdy drunkards cheering and shouting, all expecting to celebrate her 'victory'.
She hadn't even seen her father yet... nor her mother. The mother who did not love her and the father who would soon enough be dead. All options for the day couldn't seem more dire.
"Fine," Ash sighed. She tried to rise, but her broken rib burned away the idea. Only as Evara took what little of her weight she could manage did Ash stand. Her shadow loomed over the gravestone, her head casting darkness over his name.
"At least it's not going to be forgotten," Ev whispered. "They've put him within the walls. People will pass him by for generations."
---- Bathed, and scrubbed, and bandaged again. There was little joy in this first day, but the warm waters of the bathhouse granted Ash the only small reprieve she imagined she might face for some time to come.
The young huntress might have spent the remainder of her life within knee-high pools, simply floating within the aroma of lavender and steam, had Kat not been nearby to hurry her along.
"Tis' a long day to come, and the morrow is already at its end," she insisted. The girl might have spoken in a pleasant tone – a voice full of music and honey – had her words not so quickly soured Ash's peace. The huntress didn't bother opening her eyes as she responded.
"When does the feast begin?"
"When you arrive, Ash," Kat insisted. "You are the guest of honour. They shan't begin without you."
"Fine," Ash huffed, rising from the waters and covering herself in an impossibly gentle towel. "But I don't exactly have a gown to wear... Unless you count my bloodied leathers?"
"You are not expected to wear a gown, Ash," Kat chuckled. "Here."
Kat shifted a bundle of warm towels. Beneath them lay the carmine leathers she had nearly died in. "T'was not an easy task, but I managed to patch them up. If you need any help in donning them, I am here."
"I- Thank you, Kat." Ash picked up the leather chest piece. The battled and well-worn gear may as well have been virgin to danger. Not a scratch nor scuff sullied the piece, aside from a single deep dent within the chainmail belly. She pressed it to herself as another might a beautiful dress. "Thank you," she said again, much more quietly.
----Ash moved slowly, tenderly. It quickly became an exercise of patience and will. Her burning lungs and splintered bones made a battle of dressing. Every breath burned as she bound her straps. She felt the grinding of bones as she dragged the underlayer over her head. It came to the point that even particularly loud thoughts were enough to send a pang of pain down her spine - but in the end, she was ready.
---Three lefts, a right, a march through the courtyard, and knock on the colossal oak doorway saw her standing before the six guards it took to hold it open. The men saluted the huntress' entry, and she stumbled past, her eyes fixed upon the vast feast hall within.
All was breathtaking within. Gold-plated struts held the roof high enough that she doubted an archer of any skill could fire upon it. Emerald-studded chandeliers and candelabras burned with magical hues of blue, red and gold. Ruby shimmered from silver cutlery. Each man – of whom there were many – that sat along the tables must have had half a hog to himself just as a starter. Steaming goose, slathered in fat, settled above enchanted plates designed to keep them all warm.
An oven at the far end of the room was still baking bread. The smell of fresh dough buried her in warmth. Three rows of redwood tables spanned the massive hall, and at least a hundred men sat on each.
While three thrones at the head of the room seemed the last vacancies. One of ruby, one of sapphire, and at the centre - one of steel. They lay behind a gold-leafed table facing perpendicular to all others.
"Sparrow-Knight!" A great bellied man cawed from afar. He barrelled towards her, seemingly with the intent to hug her. "Finally! It's about time you joined us!"
"I- Me?" Ash stammered.
"You? Yes, you! Come, come! Take a seat, my girl!" he ushered, pushing her gently along the hall towards the ruby throne.
Half of his drink came along with the invitation as he sloshed his cup around the hall. It seemed he was alone in noticing her arrival, for which she breathed a sigh of great relief.
Revelry and energy filled the hall. All around her, young men and women did as young men and women are wont to do within their drunken merriment. The elder lords, ladies and folk of matter swapped rose-tinted tales of their own youth and feats. A grey lady had gathered a fascinated horde around her table as she spoke on the doings of some long-dead lecher queen. A great man told tale of war, and a great woman told tale of victory.
The gentleman at her side was singularly loud. His bellowing voice drowned out all others, though it seemed he had the least to say. Every second word was an indecipherable curse, and every fifth was the name of some long-dead warrior.
He ushered her into the ruby throne and collapsed down into the steel throne to her left.
"Sparreh," the man chortled as she took her seat. "Not a warrior bird. I'd have chosen- chosen a bloody hawk, or somet' with – you know – big fecking claws!" His voice held a kind of joyous tone available only to those deep within their cups.
"I-I didn't choose it," Ash meekly said. "I'm just Ashtik. I- I don't think I caught your name, sir?"
"Right!" the man cackled. "I didn't choose my name either! Thanks fer' that mum! But everyone still calls me it... Get used to it, Sparreh. Alas, I have the pleasure of being Baron Maren of House Shael. A pleasure, good knight."
"Baron," Ash gasped. "I thank you, my lord, for your hospitality and for taking care of my family."
"Nonsense," he sniffed. "The Veil is part of my fief... You're all my res- responsibility."
--"Many lords are not so dutiful. Thank you."
"Well, bugger all that," Maren slobbered. "Let's get the night started, ey?"
He rose slowly and on unsteady feet. Wiping off a stray crumb from his gambeson, Maren lifted a commanding hand towards his crowd.
"Ladies, lords, and every other cunt guzzling my wine and scoffing my meat!" He announced in an almost kingly tone. A creeping, near endearing, smirk grew across his lips as he spoke.
"We're just trying to keep up with you, Maren!" the grey lady heckled from the crowd, and a chorus of laughter succeeded her. He couldn't help but join them before focusing again and moving on.
"Right! Some important shit for the night!" he began. "We have not one, but two guests of honour!"
Ash could feel them all looking at her. The combined attention of this little empire felt an impossible weight as it wrapped around the mystery that seemingly surrounded her.
She could barely keep her eyes from the floor until a little white beacon shimmered in the far edge of sight. Evara had gathered a small cohort of like-aged girls and seemed to be half drunk amongst them. The girl smiled clumsily at Ash, but her interest soon returned to her cup of wine.
"Our guest of sapphire shall be joining us shortly," Maren pressed on, clearly swimming through the words.
As if cued, the great doors swung open and in sauntered a single, heavenly figure of almost golden tone and purely angelic features.
"Oh, Mother Satra, everybody! The beloved bishop of the forge goden." Maren cast an arm out towards her, and she humbly bowed to the crowd as she floated to her sapphire throne.
She and Ash caught eyes in the dreaded instant between blinks, and it sent a chill down Ash's spine. She had an icy leer reserved only for the pretend Champion. In it, she held a look that could only be described as personal offence; A glance that seemed utterly disgusted Ash would disgrace herself by even looking in her sinless direction.
Satra didn't seem pompous, at least with the others, but she wore her indignation with a severe purpose. The distain melted away in an instant once Maren caught her eye, but returned just as quickly as she sat at the same table as Ash.
"And of course, our guest of Ruby. She who is called Sparrow-Knight! The Sai-Weleg of the Veil clearing. The burning maiden of the 'Duke's battle'," Maren blustered. A round of hesitant, though seemingly awed applause rang out. He looked to her as though she ought to speak, then thought better once he caught the terror in her eyes and carried on.
"Now, make this a feast to- to... A feast for legend! Make it that." He slumped down into his seat after his spittle-filled speech came to an applause-filled end.
--- The celebrations erupted. What had been before seemed now the polite mumblings of high society. Now, hedonism and divine sin. They tore at the boar; they guzzled down whole jugs in one. A pack of smiling wolves shedding their societal wools and started living as nature had promised. It seemed the baron had been so thoughtful as to assign a guard to Evara. Some great stoic statue kept the worst of the evening from her little sister as she tried her hardest to keep up with the revelries.
"Sparrow-Knight?" A voice, so soft as any sound could be, called from across the table. The gentle noise carried with an impossible clarity beneath the clangs and caws of the celebrations.
For the first time, Ash's eyes jolted from Evara and met the beauty that was this bishop.
Ladyship was no virtue bestowed upon Ashtik, but she had heard tales of princesses and priestesses. She knew that one was supposed to curtsy before a great bishop, but she had no idea how to do so in leather pants... or while sitting down. At the very least, silence was called for unless spoken to directly. "At least I can manage that," Ash thought.
"Y- Yes, my lady?" Ash sputtered. She had to lean over the table slightly to get a view past the newly sleeping baron.
"Mother Satra, child. I am no noble lady," the woman corrected, her tone apathetic.
"I'm sorry." Ash moved to stand, that she might bow to her, but Satra raised a calm hand that demanded wordlessly for Ash to remain seated.
"Do not concern yourself with formalities, child," Satra said. She spoke like a much older woman. She couldn't have surpassed thirty-five, though her rasping voice and soulful eyes masked the fact well. Ash had never heard her accent before and couldn't even hazard a guess at her origin.
An orange blaze set a strange shimmer just beneath her pale brown eyes. The candlelight and sconces bound from her heavy iron crown across her flawless ebony skin and shimmered along each steel jewel adorning her gown.
"Show me the mark," she simply ordered.
Ash made no protest, lifting her blackened left hand. The steel that had barely covered her knuckles before the battle had spread now into a fingerless gauntlet, with shards of black, oily steel jutting out like claws. "Remove the gauntlet."
--"I can't."
"No?" Satra pulled Ash's arm across the table and scoured it for a seam within the metal, or some buckle that might be torn. She found none, though it didn't deter her inspection. Her callused hands probed and prodded across the steel and along the few black veins that remained visible beneath.
Ash had the urge to recoil from her touch, which was when she realised how strange it was that she could feel it at all. It was not like having her armour touched; it was as though the steel were a skin of its own. She could feel the pressure and warmth of each touch against her steel flesh. The heat imparted bled across the black like a drop of hot water.
"That is interesting," Satra said as if it were some reluctant concession. "Come with me, child."