"Ithacles sent her," Skandra spat the words like a curse.
"He wrote you a letter, didn't he?"
"How the hell would I know that?" the Immortal muttered as he leaned over one of the bodies.
"Because he knows," Gershul sighed as though he was explaining things to a child. "He knows you aren't coming."
His knife came free. Not his knife, Ithacles' knife, but the set of throwing weapons was the only weaponry that he had. A dagger had been lost, and a rondel, and now he was totally without weapons. Not totally. The knife was wiped clean on a cloak, and shoved into place beneath his cloak, and now he felt ready to go finally. Only then did it occur to him - refusing to sit on the wagon so that Leironuoth and Aeotha could climb aboard - that Aeotha had greeted him in the same way that Elemmire did. Or vice-versa. The day he shook hands with a viper. The day he sealed Ralus' fate. The day he signed himself to a war no one could win, a war between factions of faith whom everyone despised because they would use up any life in a war for principal. This life. This one pounded by rain, drenched by blood and panic, dying cold and alone far from home, wondering if he would see his mother or his wife or his lover or his brother or his sister again. Killing was a damned hateful enterprise. He should have done more for him than wipe clean a blade upon his cloak. He should have buried him. Skandra imagined himself a priest then, waving hands over the dead, whispering for their peace, and even moved his hand over the body once.
Nothing felt different.
"You don't really want to bless the dead," Shantar was behind him, to his side, crouching, watching. "It isn't worth the part of yourself that you give up. Besides, they won't remember you until they see you again. That's how it always is."
"He's dead," Skandra pointed out dumbly. "I'm never going to see him again."
"There are other states of being that you couldn't possibly imagine. Although you will. Soon."
"Is that a joke?" Skandra laughed, weakly, at his own question.