Estle held the bloody head of her halberd away from her face; none of the watchers cleaned their weapons on pyre nights. She eyed the dark beyond the ruins, at the edge of the firelight great oaks reached toward moonless stars. Somewhere on the other side of the pyre she heard another watcher put down one of the restless dead, with the telltale squelching crack and a thud.

          They’d found the ruins yesterday and guided the rest of the clan there just before twilight. The mossy bones of the moldering cathedral stretched into indigo skies when the aldor read the dirt, a tired smile graced her milky eyes, and she declared it a fine place to camp and lay their dead to rest. Estle spent more time admiring the surviving columns and arches than she did looking out as the clan pitched their tents. Even now she traced their black shadows across the starry void.

          The gossamer knell of the singing bowl sounded from the fire. The clan fell silent. Estle dared not look back from the woods, she’d face a dozen of the restless before a scolding from the aldor for shirking her watch.

          The aldor cleared her throat and from memory Estle saw it all unfold behind her eyes. Sparks cascaded into the night, fire danced on leathery skin, ragged hands reached toward the heavens, chapped lips spoke,

          “O fallen, culver of the divide no longer. Our yoke broken gulls on the blackest sea, Blodsìdhe guide thy starry wings to the glittering shores of birth anew.”

          The bouquet, made of lilies, Blodwyrt, offal and keepsakes of the deceased, was thrown to the flames.

          “Svwy seren.” The aldor called, the clan responded as one.

          The smell crept into Estle’s nose, fetid and sacred. The bereaved tenderly unbound the intricate shrouds around their loved ones and waited.

          They came slowly, silently the Bael Moths descended on the dead. Within minutes an ecliptic murmuration danced around the fire. The fluttering throngs gently embraced the bodies. A moth as big as Estle’s hand landed on her gored halberd. An older female, from her size and adornments. Across her wings was a sanguine tapestry, like veins that blossomed into a dozen lolling eyes. A smaller male joined her, also painted sanguine but missing the eyes and with wings ringed in the hue of pallid flesh. Estle thought they looked like a heart splayed in two, until she imagined ventricles gazing listlessly back at her.

          Their snouts worked away at the bloodied steel, soon her blade was eclipsed in a velvet swarm. A few landed on Estle’s shoulder and cleaned the blood from the iron pauldron that protected it. She fought down a giggle as they fluttered on her neck. Soon her halberd was polished to a shine and the swarm departed back to the fire.

          She looked toward the woods again, once she was sure nothing lurked in the trees she stole a glance at the pyre. The bodies were seas of wings with rolling waves of shadow and maroon. The Mourners wept, grieving and relieved in equal measure as they choked out final goodbyes. Estle’s gaze fell on a sea smaller than the rest; she ripped her eyes back to the wooded abyss.

          The clan slowly retreated to their tents to let the moths complete their solemn rite, and to drink to the lost. Hours crept, the fire faded, a few of the wakened limped out of the trees but Estle’s deft hand and the reach of her halberd made quick work of them. Some of the moths that hadn’t found room around the fire fed on them. Estle lifted her gaze from their rocking wings at the sound of armored footfalls. She turned. Arth shot her a polite smile through his beard that didn’t quite reach his sleepy eyes. They wordlessly exchanged the post and Estle retired to the watchers’ tent.

          Dawn broke like a fire. Shattered clouds rained gold on the misty Oaks and Sycamores of Erst Weald. Estle stretched stiffly against one of the stone pillars, she was certain her bedroll had been laid on a root. The bonfire was now a smolder that some of the unsupervised children poked with sticks, only to be shooed away by the hissing aldor.

          She approached the ashes. The five fallen laid in ossified repose on their shrouds, arms stretched above their heads, skulls faced heavenward. Near her feet a small alabaster face smiled up at her, haloed by a mandala of blues and golds embroidered in her white shroud. Bryn hadn’t seen her thirteenth winter. Her father knelt beside her, just as he had for the week before she lost her fight to The Weeping.

          “Ess.” Rees greeted her without looking up. She allowed the familiar name. This was the first time since Bryn’s infection that Rees had called her by anything but her full name or a whip of curses and epithets.

          “Rees, I am so sor – “

          “I’m sorry.” He stood, eyes stuck to the dirt, “You needn’t be, Ess.” He looked up at her, fidgeting with his hands, “Bryn always wanted to be just like you. There was no stopping her, she wanted to protect us. You gave her that. And if you hadn’t gotten her back I might not have told her goodbye.” Estle only now noticed what he was fidgeting with, and the missing fifth rib from Bryn’s left side. Rees finished tying the leather strip adorned in copper and blue beads. He handed it to Estle tenderly and she met his misty eyes.

          “Let her watch over you now.” In his rough palm was the rib, the blackened engraving in it was still warm to the touch. Estle gently took the amulet and placed it over her head.

         “Svwy seren.” Estle said with a nod. Rees returned to Bryn. She knew those words were carved in the bone. The binding words of all living Ebonbairn: Until the stars.