Part Sixty-Eight — What We Owe the Dead

　I gave Elaine oversight of Horizoncrest's trade and information network before I left with Ace to properly explore my own domain — a decision that felt, honestly, like handing her something she'd already been quietly managing without the formal title attached.

"You're the right person for this," I told her, watching her review the latest shipment manifest from Corla's contacts in Roshan. "Goods coming in, information going out, and I trust your judgment on which of our people are suited for which work."

"I'll also be assigning proper roles to the male elves who've been asking for meaningful work rather than simply waiting on construction projects to need them," she said, already three steps ahead of me, same as always. "Some have real aptitude for trade negotiation. Others for scouting. I'll match capability to need."

"That's exactly why I'm handing this to you," I said. "You'd have done it whether I asked or not."

　She allowed herself a small, satisfied smile at that, and I left her to it with the specific confidence of a man who knew the town's practical affairs were in genuinely capable hands.

　Eris, meanwhile, had taken on a project of her own — training three new recruits who'd specifically requested her as their teacher rather than Elaine's more general defense force curriculum.

"Elva, Celica, and Luke," she introduced them to me, the three standing at careful attention despite Eris's blind eyes technically making the gesture unnecessary. "They came to me directly. Said they wanted the kind of training that actually prepares someone for real danger, not just drills."

Smart of them, honestly. Eris survived things drilling alone never fully prepares anyone for.

"I'm designating them Horizoncrest's newest elite unit," Eris continued. "Code names Seven, Eight, and Nine, respectively — continuing the numbering Elaine's original defense cadre already established."

Huh. Didn't realize there was already a numbered system in place. Guess I've been letting the practical side of this town run itself more than I fully appreciated.

"You'll do well under her," I told the three recruits. "She's harder on herself than she'll ever be on you, which tells you everything about how seriously she takes this."

　Eris didn't argue that assessment, which told me it was probably more accurate than she'd have liked to admit out loud.

　Before Ace and I set out to properly survey the domain, I did something I'd been quietly putting off for longer than I wanted to admit to myself.

　I used what remained of my own more basic anti-mana control — not Arcane Creation, gone now, but the same simple precision my mother had once drilled into me one leaf at a time — to shape a proper gravestone at the edge of Horizoncrest, overlooking the same ridgeline where the mountain's ruins had once stood before any of this town existed.

This is for both of you. Somewhere real, this time. Not just ruins nobody else ever properly understood the meaning of.

　I carved their names into the stone myself, slow and careful, wanting every letter to mean something rather than rushing through it the way Arcane Creation might once have let me.

Ashley — True Dragon, mother.

Daniel — Archdemon, father.

Loved beyond what any single stone could properly hold.

I don't know if either of you can actually see this, wherever grief and memory and whatever comes after actually go. But I wanted you to have something real. Somewhere people could actually come stand and know you existed, instead of just ruins nobody else ever understood.

　Eris found me there, some time later, quiet, not intruding on the moment so much as simply making sure I wasn't carrying it entirely alone.

"It's beautiful," she said, reaching out to find the stone's edge with careful hands, tracing the carved letters the way she'd learned to read the world since losing her sight.

"Took me longer than it should have," I admitted. "Kept starting over. Wanted it right."

"They'd know it was right," she said, certain. "However they see things now, if they see anything at all — I think they'd know exactly how much care went into it."

　I stood there a while longer after she'd gone back to her own training, looking out over Horizoncrest's rooftops toward the two names I'd finally learned, just the evening before, from Aeron's careful telling.

Vahlreth. Skorne. You have names now too, same as my parents have a proper stone.

I'm not ready for you yet. I want to be honest about that, standing here. But every true thing I learn, every stone I carve, every year I spend actually building something worth protecting — that's all part of getting ready, whether the getting-ready looks like training or looks like grief, standing quietly at a gravestone I finally let myself build.

Soon. Not yet. But soon, I think, this is all going to come to a head, one way or another.

　I turned back toward Ace, waiting patiently a respectful distance away, and toward whatever the unexplored reaches of my own domain still had left to show me.