He buried her body alone. He had cut away the rope from her neck and closed her eyes from the world. He toiled in the dirt, digging past tree roots and hard earth. Eventually, he laid her down into the pit before covering her from sight.

Then he set fire to the house. As he stood, staring into the flames, acrid smoke watering his eyes, he thought then what she had been. Her name – Kuhien. She had never even told him her line. Chose not to, as she had cursed her parents for her fate. Now she was gone, and some part of him, hoping that the world could prove him wrong, had died with her. He did not say a word. There was nothing he could find within himself; not a rite, nor a blessing, no meaning.

He turned away as the last remains of the cabin blackened to smoking cinders. The kite had remained in the house; their home. Thael imagined it curling and singing, its many painted colors withering away, scattered into ash with the rest of the world.