Shepherd’s End Cemetery
Summer 1011
She stared at the marker, mind uncomprehending. Ixtalan Khetza Vekhir, 1001 – 1011. They meant something, but what? She heard soft footsteps behind her, but couldn’t bring herself to react until a small hand slipped into hers.
She knew without looking that it was Ava. She had seen the other girl hovering around, looking uncertainly at her. And she knew that she understood. She had to know. She was the only other person Xalati knew who had had something so similar, so awful, happen to them.
The idea of there being more of this—that it was somehow just another thing that could happen, that it wasn’t uniquely, devastatingly singular—suddenly overwhelmed her. The diamond knot in her stomach burst, scattering from her eyes in hot shards, tearing out her lungs in gasping sobs. What kind of place could this be? How could a world be so cruel as to permit this loss, not once, not twice, but forever and ever, for people to keep leaving?
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