don’t take time, you’ll go into the next weakened. Take a couple of weeks, because love and grief aren’t weaknesses, baby. Every good commander knows when a soldier needs a couple of weeks to recoup. That includes you.”
“We need to rotate in fresh troops, leave a security force here, bring in people to help the resistance repair some of the infrastructure, others to plant in the green spaces. The Beach needs a commander, and one who can start leading some of its troops south. We need—”
“It’ll be a long list,” Simon interrupted. “Get your shower, we’ll get some other brains in on that list, get some food, and work it out. But first.”
He held up his glass, waited.
“Okay.” She let out a long breath, steadied herself. Then lifted her glass. “To Mick.”
* * *
Duncan headed the burial detail. Some would be transported back to their homes, but so many had no home other than the bases they’d migrated to. For those, he claimed a section of the park, one where the ground rose, where the trees grew thick.
It was heartbreaking, soul-searing work, and so he’d asked for volunteers rather than issuing orders for the detail. It revived him, his flagging spirit, that he had more than were needed. He split them up into groups assigned to separate the enemy dead, others to dig graves, others to make markers.
He spotted Tonia, worked his way to her. “Give yourself a break.”
“I will when you will,” she said, and kept shoveling.
“There are easier ways to dig a grave.”
“Sometimes you need to do something this way. We lost Clarence.”
“Shit.” Duncan felt his heart drop again as he thought of the boy they’d rescued from a cult, and the women who’d taken him as a son.
“And Keisha, Morris, Liah. Mick.” Tonia swiped at her face, leaned on the shovel. “Have you seen Fallon?”
“Not since … No. Colin said she’s holding, and they’re meeting now to work on reconstruction, cleanup, expansion.”
“Why aren’t you in on that?”
“I need to do this.”
“Me, too.”
With a nod, he picked up a shovel, helped her dig.
After friends, loved ones, comrades had been laid to rest, Duncan supervised the purification and burning of the enemy dead. Dusk crept in by the time he went back to the graves.
This he’d wanted to do alone.
Pulling up power, he brought the green springing through the mud, a hopeful sea of it over what he thought of as sacred ground. There would be a ceremony in the morning—even now Tonia worked on those arrangements. Words would be said, tears shed. But tonight, he’d pay his own respects.
He’d chosen this spot for the rise of land, the trees, and the rough rocks pushing tall out of the ground. Some formed wide steps, others peaks.
He’d already sketched what he wanted in his mind, and now used his magick to bring it to be.
He smoothed some of the rough. He sketched a great deal better than he sculpted, so worried a little he’d muck it up.
But he smoothed, formed, carved, etched, polished, let the image flow from him into the rock.
He chose the form of a faerie for the grace, with wings spread, hands held out to those who lay beneath her.
He drew up more, still more, until water broke through the rock, to spill gently down the steps of stone, and formed a stone pool below for it to feed. Above the pool, he carved the fivefold symbol.
Finally, he stepped back, studied his work. “Best I can do.”
He turned to leave, saw Fallon, the alicorn and wolf beside her, the owl on her arm.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I couldn’t think of any words.”
“It doesn’t need any. Look, the faeries are lighting it.”
He looked back, saw the dance of lights.
“You used Fred’s face.”
“I guess I did.” He saw it now. “I didn’t realize.”
“It’s beautiful,” she repeated, and again felt tears pushing up into her throat. “It’s right. Tonia told me you might still be here, and that she and some others have the details for a ceremony in the morning. I need to walk.”
He fell into step with her, but didn’t touch her. The barrier he felt was as real as the stone he’d carved.
“You didn’t come to the meeting.”
“I needed to do this.”
“Understood. Flynn’s going to take command of The Beach, and start moving troops south.”
“You couldn’t ask for better.”
“No. He’ll be gone for weeks, maybe months. I nearly asked you to take that post, but … I wasn’t sure I could get through those weeks or months if you went