He had not been able to get warm since the messengers arrived with the news. No amount of hot tea or fur wraps or fuel on the fire could warm this coldness of the soul. Guerrand blamed the chill on the weather, which had steadily worsened since he and Kirah outran the black clouds on the heath. Gale winds and fierce rain pounded the coast relentlessly for days, damaging crops and dropping mighty limbs. Moving about like zombies, the villagers seemed to lack the energy to remove the debris. The winds continued, adding loose bricks to the wreckage outside, while the stifling stillness of the funereal viewing wrought devastation inside. Guerrand had seen too much of death in his nineteen years. At seven he was not permitted even to say farewell to his mother, whose own life had ebbed away at the same time she gave it to Kirah. He hadn’t understood death fully then, half expecting his mother to return as if on holiday. But she never did. So, by the time their father died just two short years later, the nine-year-old boy understood too well that Rejik would not be returning, that life would never be the same.
