Chalter 59; Grief

MAERWYNN POV

The past week had been a blur of grief and obligation, a ceaseless parade of townsfolk pouring through the doors, offering their condolences to Edina and the rest of us. It was almost mechanical—their hushed words, their somber faces, the baskets of tidings they brought. Wine, bread, berries, carefully wrapped in cloth. Someone had even knitted sweaters and shawls, as though wool could warm the kind of cold that had settled into this house, into Edinas bones, since Lorcan’s death.

I hated it—the gestures, the empty sympathy. It felt like a veil over the reality we were living in, as though these gifts could somehow patch the gaping wound left behind. But Edina needed it. She clung to those small acts of kindness, retreating behind the routine of accepting them with a tight smile, her eyes hollow and distant.

Valen and the others had done what they could, vanquishing the Algoths from the woods and temporarily reinforcing the barrier. It had been a hollow victory, though.