The second Asena hit the ground, Rhosyn dropped down to her knees. She flipped Asena onto her back. Her best friend of nine years was breathing. Rhosyn let out quick prayer to Saint Axton--Patron Saint of Health and Healing.

"Asena?" She whispered, leaning over her friend to look at her face, it was paler than the snow atop the Saldso Mountains in the far north. Rhosyn got no response from her longest friend.

The bones of the dead woman were stark against the dark color of the grass. There was little different about the skeleton from the others they had seen, aside from the gold that indicated something Rhosyn hadn't wanted to think about yet.

Why had Asena fainted? It made little sense, Asena had carved through men like butter with only a tear to go with the gore; she had never fainted, never blacked out.

But these weren't the bones of warlords or the bodies of horde members, they were the bones of their queen: Photine.

Aislinn had sucked in a breath--it sounded haggard even to Rhosyn's distracted ear--Kainda tucked the small brown-skinned girl into her arms and pressed a gentle kiss to Aislinn's brow. As Kainda was a good ten inches taller than Aislinn, the comforting gesture required a great deal of bending on her part.

Rhosyn didn't know if Aislinn's hitched breath was from the sight of Asena unmoving on the ground or that mere inches away were the bones of their late queen. Maybe it was both.There was such tender intimacy in that small kiss that it almost made Rhosyn shutter. She felt like she was intruding on a private moment she wasn't meant to see. Rhosyn looked back down to Asena.

"Go get Kirsi." Murmured a deep soft voice: Elizeus. "Get Daesyn, too. Actually," His voice was strained for once. "Hell, get everyone." Rhosyn didn't know who he was talking to, just that she wasn't going to move from her spot beside Asena's body.

She reached out and stroked her friend's hair in the way that she remembered her own mother doing when she had fallen and scraped her knee, or when she had been sick.

The moments between Asena's eyes closing and opening seemed to span both hours and seconds. The moment Kirsi's feet touched the ground, Rhosyn released a long heavy breath.

Kirsi seemed to move in slow motion and Rhosyn languished as Kirsi's distinct step, deliberate, and gentle in everything she did, made its way towards Asena. Kirsi's steps were graceful, the ball of her foot hitting the ground first, her toes pointed; they were the slowest steps Kirsi had ever taken.

After an eternity of steps, Kirsi's light, caressing hand fluttered against her shoulder. "Step back, sweetie." Her voice was like flowers blooming through the winter's frost; she smelled like herbs and cleanliness. Rhosyn stepped back in a daze-like state as Kirsi procured a vial from her clever kit and placed it beneath Asena's nose.

Rhosyn's friend jolted upright, hazel eyes wide. There was terror in her eyes as she looked at Rhosyn and then vomited, all over Kirsi. The doctor gave a sharp nod and wiped off the stinking bile with only mild annoyance, as if it were an everyday occurrence. Perhaps it was, Rhosyn didn't know, she was only responsible for sewing, and tending to the animals the caravan kept. Maybe getting vomited on is like stepping in animal shit.

Kirsi gave Asena a gentle, yet firm pat on the back as she retched more of her stomach contents onto the grassy forest floor. "How do you feel, Asena?"

"Well, for starters my mouth tastes horrible." There was a strain to Asena's voice that made Rhosyn want to yell at her that it wasn't the time for jokes, that it was to start explaining why she'd passed out. Normal people don't just randomly blackout.

Kirsi, it seemed, was not amused either (Rhosyn didn't think it helped that Asena had vomited on her) and just lifted a near white eyebrow at Asena's admittedly bad stalling attempt.

Asena's lip was caught in between her teeth and Rhosyn saw that her fingernails were sinking into the soft flesh of her skin, leaving bruised, bloody trails in their wake. Asena squeezed her jaw tighter and ruby blood dribbled down her chin. She didn't seem to notice. "The Qu...Queen." She stammered, the fear in her hazel eyes mixing with another emotion that Rhosyn couldn't identify. "She's...she's...gone." Asena sounded hollow and she almost seemed to be staring off at something no one else could see.

Kirsi moved her pale, slender hand in a circle on Asena's shoulder, trying to calm her. The other hand grasped at the Asena's own hands in attempts to get them to stop their assault on Asena's forearms. "I know, you found her bones." The doctor's voice was serene and lilting as she tried those comforting words.

Asena shook her head, eyes still distant. "No," She spoke like she was in a dream state, not really there. "I saw her die." Her voice ended on a high crack. She looked up at Kirsi, tears had made rivers down her cheeks. "I can still feel her...her b-blood... and hear her body h-hit the ground. I was in that tree." She pointed a shaking finger to an ancient oak that appeared no different from the others in the grove.

Collectively, the mouths of everyone in the clearing dropped open. Had a bug wished to fly inside, it would have found that moment the most opportune time. 

There had been rumors that a child had been swept up by Queen Photine in the chaos of that day--the Unmaking they'd coined it, as the riot that had broken out had unmade their country. People referred to that child as the Lost Child.

There were as many rumors about the Unmaking as there were Saints and Saintesses, though Rhosyn knew most she didn't give them much heed. One said that the elves and little faeries of the Old Religion had come back to punish them for straying; another said that the Queen was alive and well, building up an army to retake Astos from the warlords.

But others, like the child Queen Photine had saved, appeared to be reality instead of stories invented by bored gossips. It made Rhosyn wonder, for the first time in her life, if the rumors about Queen Photine having a secret child were true.

There were variations of that rumor, it was a popular one, so many in fact that it was hard to know what went with what: some said the child had been a baby when Queen Photine had died, others said it had been almost ten. Others claimed the child was a boy; some, a girl. But the rumors were all clear that the child was a bastard--Queen Photine's own bastard child.

It made Rhosyn question if Asena was... But she couldn't be. Rhosyn tried to push the thought out of her head. She would have told me if she was my princess, wouldn't she? The thought of her friend not telling her something as important as that smarted more than Rhosyn liked to admit.

"You're the child?" Daesyn rasped, everyone had gathered around Asena--the squad, Isolde, Vanya, and the other squad leaders--hanging on her next words.

A breathy yes was the answer. Asena still seemed far away, eyes almost glassy. Eyes darted around to meet others, Rhosyn was asking the question they were all in their heads. Was Asena the daughter of the late Queen?

"Are you," Vanya started, awe and wariness in the same measure in her voice. Her dark brown eyes were hopeful--a rare thing in their camp, even more so in their country. "The Queen's daughter?"

At the question, Asena's chest began to rise faster and faster, her breath became ragged and face turning red. Her eyes started watering and when Asena squeezed them shut tears made streams down her crimson stained cheeks. Asena's hands flew to her chest and began scratching at the skin there as if they desired dig threw her chest all the way to her heart and claw it out. Blood ran and bruises bloomed.

Kirsi's eyes flew wide and Rhosyn saw her mouth words to herself. "Everyone step back," Her voice wasn't the gentle tone she used with patients, but an authoritative and stern one. "Stop asking questions. She has Emotional Stress Disorder."

It was unfortunately common following the Unmaking, but the commonality didn't do anything to stop the pang Rhosyn felt in her heart for her friend. No one, least of all Asena, deserved to be plagued by their memories. ESD was something they took seriously in the caravan, most people had it or its less frequent sister: Fugacious Emotional Distress.

Rhosyn just wished Asena had told her or someone instead of just dealing with the flashbacks and attacks that were indicative of ESD. In all honesty, Rhosyn didn't know how it was treated, she was one of the handful of people without it one way or another.

She felt useless and awkward as Kirsi firmly gripped Asena's hands to keep them from digging into herself. Daesyn herded the group, including Rhosyn, away from Asena to give her a private moment. To see someone stripped down so thoroughly and left at their most vulnerable was horribly intimate and yet pulled attention, making it difficult to look away. The fact that it was her best friend made it even more difficult for Rhosyn to wretch her eyes away.

Elizeus and Isolde found it not difficult at all (no surprise there); when Rhosyn eventually tore her gaze away, the pair was examining the remains of Queen Photine. Rhosyn had never actually seen the Queen, but she'd been told that Photine had been somewhat plain with brown hair and light brown eyes. She'd had dove gray wings too. Rhosyn tilted her head, thinking. The description of their dead queen was similar to how Asena looked, in coloring anyways. She could see how someone could think Asena was Photine's child, but Asena would have told her.

Wouldn't she have? The doubt in the thought made Rhosyn frown. After all, Asena hadn't told her about being saved or even her flashbacks.

Isolde stooped down to examine the bones, or more specifically the gold that was in the shape of feather tips. Of course that's what the blacksmith would look at, the metal. Rhosyn gave a quick prayer to Saint Zavain for the soul of the dead queen. She hoped that Saintess Xiomara had welcomed Queen Photine into the AfterRealm with warm hands.

"Interesting." Muttered Elizeus, almost to himself but Rhosyn knew that he was just soft spoken and was most likely addressing Isolde, who was seemingly Elizeus' only friend. "She must have carried Asena far. Wonder how no one's found her body."

It was more words than Elizeus usually spoke at one time. Isolde just nodded and softly murmured. "It was probably covered until recently."

Elizeus peered down at the bones, crossing his arms as he did so. "Some look more weathered than others." Isolde reached out to touch a piece of the feather shaped gold, but was stopped by the liver spotted hand of Daesyn.

"What are you doing?" His usual soft voice was a near hiss. It made Rhosyn blink, the old man was almost never that harsh. "Don't touch her, not until we've sent away her soul."

Isolde gave him an icy glare, colder than the peaks of the mountains of Isolde's birth. "Enough prayers have been said over her to send away a thousand souls; I doubt she needs one more."

Behind her grandfather, Vanya gave Isolde a stern look and surprisingly Isolde bowed her head though there was still irritation in her glacier blue eyes. Strange, Isolde usually heeded no one. But Rhosyn's thoughts about Isolde and Vanya were pushed away by Daesyn's voice as he responded to Isolde. "A thousand perhaps for a woman and a queen, but not one for a saintess."

Isolde's snowy head snapped up, in fact, everyone was looking at the old priest at the mention of a saintess. "Grandfather," It was Vanya's honey voice tinged with concern, her almond shaped eyes alight with worry at the possibility of her grandfather's memory slipping "Photine wasn't made a saintess."

He gave her a cheeky grin. "I know that." He paused, seeming to savor how everyone in the clearing--save Asena and Kirsi--hung on his words. "That's why I'm making her a Saintess, the Patron Saintess of Pregnant Women and Lost Children." The old priest smiled to himself, his upturned lips causing more wrinkles to appear on his light brown cheeks.

"Ahhh can he do that?" Asked Quillan to Evony in a not so quiet whisper.

"Nope." Daesyn answered with a jaunty quip. He shuffled towards the bones of Photine. "Queen Photine," he began. "We hereby name you Saintess Photine, Patron of Pregnant Women and Lost Children, blessed be you. In your final hours you saved a child and were martyred. We bless your spirit Saintess Photine and send your soul to be welcomed by Saintess Xiomara at her Eternal Gate and into the AfterRealm of Saint Zavain."

"Bless your spirit, Saintess Photine." Rhosyn repeated and others followed suit. "We send your soul to be welcomed by Saintess Xiomara at her Eternal Gate and into the AfterRealm of Saint Zavain."

There was a silence in the grove of oak trees and Rhosyn realized with a start that both Asena and Kirsi were gone. A cold voice cut through the silence: Isolde. "Now can we move her, I want to get some sleep tonight."

Daesyn gave her a side glance. "I suppose, just remember that you're moving the body of a Saintess now." He smiled to himself at the mention of the newly minted Saintess and turned to say something to one of the other squad leaders.

Vanya walked up to Isolde, light brown hands propped on her hips, and thwacked her on the shoulder. Rhosyn couldn't help but stare, only Isolde's sisters and maybe Eilzeus would do something like that to Isolde. Rhosyn couldn't hear what they were saying, but Isolde was listening to Vanya with annoyed affection. Vanya finally turned to go back to her grandfather and Isolde reached up to pat her on the backside as she went. Vanya's head whipped around, a flush staining her cheeks red. Isolde chuckled to herself and turned, the motion revealing a tattoo of a butterfly on the back of her neck that Rhosyn hadn't noticed before.

The tattoo made the dynamic between Vanya and Isolde make sense. Vanya's name meant butterfly. Isolde and Vanya were lovers and Isolde had marked herself as Vanya's with a butterfly that signified the other woman's name. The love in that gesture made Rhosyn smile despite the bones of a dead queen and her friend's trauma.

Love is the toughest of survivors. Rhosyn thought. It can take root, grow, and blossom even in the darkest of places and the hardest of times.

Her smile grew wider.