The next month passed in a blur. It turns out, married life is not so different from regular life. At least mine wasn’t, Inparem and I didn’t move in to live with another. I stayed in the village to take care of Matre, and he continued living on his own, hunting and harvesting for the coming winter.

The Dog Stalks exacerbated whatever illness Mother had. I wanted to be angry at her for not telling me that this would happen. But it was hard, Matre knew she was dying. In her eyes there wasn’t anything to do about it but enjoy life to the fullest until she passes. Her choice to take the Dog Stalks was an extension of that approach. Everyday she wasted in front of me, a little thinner a little less. One day I woke up, and she didn’t. She had died sleeping next to me.

I knew from our conversations that she died without any deep regrets. She had been happy with the life she lived. But I had many. If I were smarter, if I had studied medicine, could I have changed something? Saved her? How bitter I felt that I had not taken advantage of my privilege from before, my access to information, to learning. Or if I were braver, would I have found one of the creatures she mentioned, or an Estoric One who would be willing to help?

After wrapping her in her blanket, the tears came. Covering her face made it real that she was gone. I cried for her, and I cried for myself. My rock in this world, my friend who gave me unconditional love and support was gone. All the platitudes that I had heard before and even said before to others in mourning, that she had lived a long and full life or that she was at peace now, fell empty.

I sat kneeling next to her body, in a croaking crying state until Ava came. I do not know how long I had been like that, but as I wanted to move my muscles were stiff and my toes were blue.

We buried her in her blanket, with no coffin. There was no tradition of a coffin here, but I liked it better that way. She was closer to the earth. There was no gravestone either, or garden of flowers. We piled rocks instead. Without a will, Inparem and I were treated by all as her children, all of the villagers came by her cottage to talk to us. Even those that I had never met before. They told stories about her.

I fell in love with her all over again, as I heard of her passion and of her strength. How she had been one of the founders of this village. A haven for outsiders, for people of the periphery who were not accepted elsewhere. And how she had taught all who wished how to read and write, giving some a hope for a better future.

Throughout it all, Inparem stood by me. We stayed the first few nights in her cottage. I felt a fierce happiness that I had married Inparem. At comfort that I was not alone. I knew that I was using him. However he was as heartbroken if not more than I was, he was using me too.

Perhaps I could have stayed there, stayed living in her home, living her life. Although a part of me wondered if the acceptance and equal treatment from the villagers was because I had married Inparem. But I didn’t want to stay there. After a week, I packed what I had. A change of clothes and my clothing from before The River, a basket and a ball of yarn I had made. Enough material from her old clothing to quilt a sleeping hammock for myself. The last thing I packed was a necklace from Matre. It was the only item she had spoken of before her death. She had wanted me to have it. She had been too weak to give to me, instead she had explained to me where she had hidden it, buried out in the hills, as if it were a pirate’s treasure chest. It would have definitely fit into one. For a moment, as I held it and looked down at it, I could imagine feeling Matre’s warmth.

It was different from anything else I had, in it’s opulence and splendor. It was a long gold chain, with a sapphire the size of a quail’s egg set in gold. There was an engraved symbol on the golden back of the gem, of a salamander. I didn’t know how she had kept it secret all those years, maybe even from her husband. It was her last sentimental link to her past. From before The Seperation, the event that had drastically changed the fate of Matre’s family, when she was only a young girl. After another failed war of the Empire, that the city of merchants she and her family had lived in bore the brunt of the costs of, the merchants gathered into a council. That council planned and succeeded, in both one the largest coup and feats of magic in living memory. From one day to the next, they had lifted their city as well as the land around it high above the clouds and steered the giant lumps of earth above the Bitter Sea. With the position of wealth and upper hand the new council of merchants together held, they negotiated the semi-independence of their city, and renamed it to the Ascended City. A reminder of their accomplishments and a jab to the Empire.

The then young emperor had retaliated by calling the change a great success, and applauded the accomplishments of the city, renaming his era of ruling the Age of Golden Unity. This had been the last bit of politics Matre’s family had followed until they, along with all families with ties to nobility, were brutally exiled from the Ascended City, everything they owned they were forced to leave behind. Almost everything, I corrected myself, hand clenching around the necklace. With that I was ready to leave. Inparem was too, I was grateful he had not pressed me to leave earlier, although he probably had wanted to.

The cottage would not stay empty for long. A friend of a friend or a child of someone would live there soon enough. I didn’t know how these things were decided, and I wasn’t interested.

Before I left, I went by to say goodbye to Ava. She knew when she saw me that I had come to say goodbye. I don’t know what it was that gave it away, but I saw in her eyes that she recognized what was coming.

“So this is goodbye then?”

“Yes, but not a permanent one, I will come by sometimes to say hello.”

I didn’t know if she believed me. I didn’t know if I believed myself.

She shifted, looking uncomfortable. “Before you leave, Calor and some of the other villagers wanted me to ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“You know that Matre came from nobility, did she by any chance leave you something of value?”

I clamped down on my facial expressions, hard. Did they know?

“Like what? What do you mean? She left clothes, tools and wool, but all her money was invested in the flock.”

She was visibly relieved by my answer. “Well that’s fine then. It’s just that if she had anything valuable from her life before, the elders said it should be sold and used for the village.”

“Okay then, I left almost everything in the cottage. I took only some clothes and yarn.”

“That’s good, I heard someone wanted to move in as soon as possible.”

Aelia came up from behind her mother. “You don’t have to leave Marin, mother can ask permission for you to stay.”

“Yes, I can try.” Ava added. Her smile was on point, but I knew that if she had meant it she would have offered it earlier, without the prompt from Aelia.

I bent down slightly, to be on height with Aelia. “I am leaving to live with Inparem. But we will still see each other, I will come visit.” This time I meant it, and there was warmth in my eyes.

“But it won’t be the same.”

“No it won’t be, but it will make the time we are together even more precious.”

We hugged goodbye and that was that. Once again, my life had changed.