There had been a moment when Kai had us all frozen. He managed to save my parents from the archangel’s attack. But then something changed, and his powers ran rampant, killing everyone before the angels could.

Did the newly arrived angels have something to do with that? Was he not able to contain the power or was it, someone… something else in his body?

If only I had managed to stay conscious and see where he and Myriam had gone. My head started aching again.

I looked for Kard and saw him consoling Krysha. She was standing by her father’s body—the one who had raised her after her mother had died in the raid alongside Myriam’s parents.

I joined them and put my right hand on her left shoulder. She turned to face me and I barely had time to notice her lower lip tremble under the brim of her large hat, before she threw herself into my arms.

“It was not his time, Adel,” she half-whispered half-sighed.

“It was nobody’s time,” I replied.

She ended our embrace and looked at both of us, tears in her eyes.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

The question hit me with incredible force, especially because it was coming from Krysha. She had always been the calculating type, the one that would know what to do next, just like my sister. To see her in this state, devastated me.

I thought again about what my parents would want.

“We need to do what our families and friends would have done,” I said. “We need to take care of the younger ones. We need to prepare the funerals… and we need to be strong while doing this.”

Kard was looking at us while flicking a thin metal bar from one finger to the other effortlessly. He took a step forward and sat on the ground.

“When my parents died…” he started, his eyes on the floor. The metal bar awkwardly fell to the ground. He didn’t move to pick it up. “My uncle said I should live my life the way I think would make them proud. He told me I should try to be happy and that this was what they would have wanted of me. That’s exactly what I'm going to do now that I lost my uncle as well.”

“Kard…” whispered Krysha.

“What we need to do first,” I said, “is find the oldest among us and try to convince them to help us take care of the younger ones.”

"Yes,” agreed Krysha. “That could be enough to motivate them for now. And once everyone is active again, we should gather at the market and decide what to do for the funeral.”

“And get everyone a proper meal,” I added.

***

It took us the better part of the morning to convince everyone to bring their mind back to the land of the living. The walk to the market was eerily silent. The weather was warm, but clouds were beginning to form here and there.

We seated ourselves in one of the outdoor diners where, thankfully, there were still many rations of food ready, so I helped some of the older manaless serve them to everyone.

There was something profoundly sad about the silent meal we had at the very same tables which were supposed to host such a joyous feast. Now there were barely more than six scores of us sitting there instead of thousands.

Once everyone was done with their meal or close to it, I looked over at Kard and Krysha and they each gave me a nod. This was not a responsibility that I would willingly take but it was exactly what my parents would have done.

I instinctively thought of the stories about grand battles I was told while growing up. They always stopped with the outcome and then jumped to the aftermath. They never mentioned what comes directly after the battle had ended.

I had never thought about what happened to all the bodies—who would take care of them and what of the bodies of the enemies? Yet, here I was, about to face this never-mentioned side of all those stories.

I pulled out the chair I was sitting on and used it as a step to climb up onto the table. I took a deep breath, and remembered my mother's words on the day we first came to Nara.

“This is a sad day,” I began. “We’ve lost so much. Our families. Our friends. Our loved ones. All we have left is their memories. Their memories and the promises we made to make them proud. All we have is each other. I know this is too soon to ask anything of you… but now that there is no one left with mana, it falls upon us to take care of the funeral arrangements. Unfortunately, we do not have enough people to dig graves to bury all of our loved ones.”

A low murmur spread throughout the crowd as they realized the implications of this.

“My parents told me…” I swallowed to hide the slight tremble in my voice and continued. “…that according to the old ways, people used to bring their dead to the river, especially in times of battle, and burn them.” Some of the older teenagers opened their mouths in disbelief. “I know that this is not what we are used to, but I don't see any other option.”

“So, we're just going to throw my father in the water and let the fish have him?” someone shouted.

Some of the other manaless agreed with him. It was mostly people around my own age, who had seen proper burials before. Most of the younger ones had never experienced a funeral before and didn’t fully understand.

I was sure that even those who had reservations only did so because of the high expectations that my mother set nine years ago. At that point, Krysha stood up.

“What other option do we have?” she asked. The question lingered for a while. “We simply cannot dig… I don't know how many… hundreds of graves! The bodies seem to be in some kind of organic stasis but we don’t know how long this will last. We were extremely fortunate with the weather conditions so far even though summer should be over by now.”

Once more she let that fact linger, so that everyone would consider the turns of the weather.

“You can see that clouds are already gathering,” she continued. “The bodies of our loved ones should not remain outside for much longer. And that is not just because the bodies must be protected from the rain but also because rain here means snow in the mountains. And snow in the mountains can push predators down here to look for food.”

People gasped and trembled at the idea.

“What easier prey than our loved ones?” She pressed her point.

Now most of the group was nodding in agreement with her. Not wanting to let the momentum fade, I jumped back in to get everyone moving.