Brandon's fingers closed around the pendant.
Slowly. Like his hand belonged to someone else, someone moving through water instead of air.
He lifted it from where it had fallen against Kira's collarbone, the chain still looped where her fingers had held it right up until they'd stopped holding anything at all.
He fastened it around his own neck. The clasp clicked shut with a small, ordinary sound that felt obscene given everything else happening around them.
His eyes closed.
Tears tracked down through ash and drying blood on his face, cutting clean lines through the grime. He didn't wipe them away. Didn't seem to know they were there.
Beside him, Elara had Kira's body gathered against her chest, rocking, her sobs coming without any breath control, without any attempt to be quiet about it. Her hands were smeared red from pressing against a wound that had already stopped needing pressure.
And something in Brandon broke.
He opened his eyes.
Stood.
