Shepherd’s End
Spring, Year 1019
Underneath Xalati’s sorrow, anger, and exhaustion, a shimmering thread of joy beats steadily through the days that follow the destruction of Shepherd’s End. She was back. She was here. She had felt her.
Which only adds another layer of guilt over everything that nevertheless utterly fails to erase the joy. How dare she have any happiness, with the crushing tragedy that had struck them all? With Ember and Zakhal gone the same way Ixtalan had, disappeared without even a corpse to mourn in the wake of terrible beasts? With Ash gray and crawling through each awful hour without her twin brother, much the way she herself had after Tala’s death?
One time, during the break point of her morning swim before she turns and strokes back toward the harbor, the treacherous thought occurs to her: Was it worth it? To lose the village in exchange for her back, however briefly?
No, she answers herself swiftly, horrified; but can’t erase the fear that perhaps there had been a sliver of her that answered, yes, before being buried.
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