They begged her not to leave them. There were so few of them. Sosa snagged her light to Grammawe`s bronze bangle and to the armour Dorrel had passed on to another since she could no longer walk. She bade them wait at either end of the group as she flooded the space between them with light. It didn`t help that the protective light was invisible to the villagers. If they could see it maybe they would trust her. Still, they waited where she told them to, just on the edge of the trees in the rising dawn light. Then she lied to them.

　　The protection would hold without her there, she did not need to test it, though this is what she told them. They were perfectly safe, she had no doubt. This was not the reason she left them and went back to the village. There was so few people, it didn`t take much light to protect them all anyway. They had left a great number of dead, but worse were the dying. The badly injured could not travel and there was no way to carry them through the forest only to have them die anyway. Several villagers had refused to leave their dying relatives or friends, but in the end Sosa had convinced them all. Only those who would not be able to make the trip, or who would not survive it, were left.

　　Even as Sosa uttered the words that convinced people the only way to survive was to leave them, inside she screamed at herself. She`d been so critical of the lies and manipulations of the chief, yet here she was lying, convincing people to abandon the dying so they might live.

　　If it was indeed their destiny to live at all. Maybe their penance for abandoning the dying and dead without proper burial would be to follow Sosa to some worse fate in the trees.

　　Sosa stepped over the dead and into the building. She leaned the spear by the wall and drew her sword. Mercifully most of the injured and dying were asleep, unconscious or rolling in pain. Raela was among them, which Sosa felt was a blessing in a way. She would have refused to leave her patients if she`d been able too. Now she was unconscious and discoloured from blood loss, a great gash opened her chest and stomach where she had stood protecting a patient when the bodaki broke in. The patient had died and soon so would she.

　　A great figure stretched across the floor, looking larger than when she stood. The slash across her face had taken one eye and blood now blinded the other. She was awake and Sosa reached for her hand, but she flinched away at the touch.

　　It`s me, it`s just me,`

　　The half blind Dorrel had guarded the door while they made their plans to leave them. The giant had collapsed just before dawn.

　　Sosa?` Dorrel reached for her grasping fingers. Where is everyone?`

　　Sosa couldn`t do this. She swallowed so that Dorrel would not hear how her throat tried to close over her words. Can you walk?` It was foolish, but if Dorrel could just stand, Sosa would lead her through the trees herself.

　　I can try.` Her body was slick with blood. Dorrel tried to role over, but Sosa saw her go weak and fall back, unable even to come to her knees. There were so many deep cuts and wounds on her. I, I can`t move. Sorry Sosa. I gave the bracelet to someone. I`m sorry. Dorrel let you down.`

　　No!` Sosa forced the words out of her throat. You saved them. You saved so many of them.`

　　It is quiet. Where are they?`

　　Sosa could stay here. The others didn`t need her. They could find the path and follow it. They had the light. They could take more of the armour, the weapons. They could find Rala themselves. Sosa could just stay here with these people so they didn`t die alone.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

　　There it was again, that childish naivety. It was that voice that had led her to follow her mother into the trees, to walk into a trap while these people were slaughtered. Dorrel had paid the price for it like many others. Was she really going to let them wander to their deaths while Sosa wept for the dying?

　　She held Dorrel`s hand.

　　A little lie crept to her lips, the sort of lie a mother might tell a child.

　　We`ll be back soon, just rest here.

　　Then they would be gone before the dying shouts could rest on Sosa`s conscience. Sosa would not have to hear them screaming, calling for help that would never come, calling for water, calling for food. Calling for her. Did it make it better just to be too far to hear it?

　　No. That wasn`t right.

　　Dorrel, I`m so sorry I got you hurt. I want you to know that you are the only reason anyone survived. They`re alive because of you.` Tears streamed down Sosa`s face. The words were larger than her throat would allow.

　　Don`t cry, Sosa, Dorrel will be fine.` The blinded, dying woman reached up to stroke Sosa`s hair. Dorrel is fine.`

　　Sosa took a breath and placed the sword against Dorrel`s chest and leaned all her weight onto it. It slid between her ribs and into the woman`s heart.

　　Large strong hands, grasped at Sosa`s, at the sword and finally, pleadingly, at Sosa`s face. Dorrel bucked and gargled, blood spewed from her chest, spilling over her neck, and across her stomach. The convulsions became more violent as Dorrel made a gagging sound, then blood poured from her mouth and splattered onto Sosa. The hands grew weaker and finally fell away when the blood stopped flowing.

　　Dorrel`s great heart stilled. Sosa needed both hands to pull the sword free. She collapsed onto the woman`s body. Hot blood on Sosa`s face and arms, mixed with Sosa`s tears. She wept in silence.

　　Finally, not able to stop, but at least able to sit up and take short panting breaths, Sosa looked around.

　　The room was full of people they had left. Killing a person had been so much more difficult than she had dared imagine and now the sword was covered in blood. With her eyes closed, she could still feel Dorrel`s fingers groping at her face. Pleading. Blindly begging the architect of her betrayal. Dorrel would not have understood. Would she explain to these others what she was doing to them? Would she tell them why it was better than to leave them to die long agonising deaths? To die of infection, starvation? Or to leave them to be tortured to death at the claws and teeth of the bodaki. To be dragged screaming through the trees just to taunt the ones who yet lived? Dorrel would not have understood and maybe neither would they.

　　Had it been Sosa lying there, blinded by blood, she was certain she would not have understood either.

　　Sosa looked at the sword and remembered how her father had plunged it into his own chest. It would be easy. It would be easier than this.

　　She stood, shivering feeling a cold she had never known, and walked to the next person. She didn`t want to look at his face, because she would know him. She would know his name. She knew all of their names.

　　Don`t look, then.

　　That made it worse. Not looking made her a monster. Looking would send her insane. She placed the blade against a man who was mercifully unconscious, though he groaned in his sleep as she drove it down.

　　Would this become easier?

　　Ale-ki, did she want it to become easier?

　　If it did, she was truly lost. She turned to the next.

　　And the next.

　　Sosa returned to the waiting survivors, glistening and red. Their waiting eyes fell upon her but none spoke. She walked past, not looking at anyone, and walked into the trees.

　　She was numb, but under the crust of that emptiness something burned.

　　Eleris.

　　Eleris had done this to them. Eleris knew who Gris was, knew he was the village`s guardian. She must have. She`d asked questions about their guardian and looked so surprised when Sosa had told her they didn`t need one.

　　So naive. Of course they did, they just never knew it.

　　How were they to know? Gris had lived in his ruins and protected them, taken what he needed to survive. How were they to know? They had been foolish, selfish children but Eleris could have saved them, could have saved him. But she didn`t. She sent him away and left them all to die.

　　Sosa would get these people to Rala.

　　Then she would kill Eleris.