Chapter 30: The Fellowship's Last Morning at the Ash Gate

Seraphine's salve was cold and smelled of something medicinal and faintly herbal, a remedy that had clearly been prepared in advance, which was very like her. She applied it without comment, working it into the cracked skin near my knuckles with the same precise economy she brought to everything else, and I sat still and let her, because there are moments when the sensible thing is to accept what is offered without cataloguing the gesture to death.

The volcanic terrace was quiet. Quiet in the specific way that places are quiet after something loud has happened and has finished happening — a residual quality, like the silence inside a bell after the sound has gone but before you quite believe it.

Dara was sitting fifteen feet away on a low basalt shelf, her sword across her knees, cleaning it. Not because it needed cleaning in any urgent sense. Because she needed to be doing something with her hands, and cleaning a sword is the kind of task that requires just enough attention to occupy the surface of the mind without touching what is underneath it. I recognised the impulse. I had spent the better part of three decades cataloguing things for the same reason.