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“I’m sorry.”
The sound of a shovel thudding against the dirt answers back.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Machyua bites her tongue as she lifts the soil away, tossing it over the edge of the shallow hole she’s dug. She’ll be here for hours, at this rate. She doesn’t mind.
“Do you…” Leif hovers just out of reach, hands raised as if asking for the tool in her hands. She grips the shovel tighter. “Do you want help?”
She grunts, refusing to look at him. He squirms in her peripheral vision, stepping from one foot to the other.
“It’s the least I can do… I can go find another shovel…”
“Don’t bother.” Machyua’s voice sounds alien to her own ears; uncharacteristically loud and unforgivingly harsh. The boy shrinks back a bit in the corner of her eye. Good. She doesn’t want him here.
He doesn’t immediately scuttle away as she had hoped, instead taking a second to glance at the product of his grand tactical mistake before mumbling one last apology and shuffling back to camp with his head bowed.
Machyua grimaces as she unearths a jagged piece of rock; tossing it to the side with her calloused hands.
Leif had been skirting around her for hours now, offering halves of apologies whenever she raised her eyes from the ground. He seems genuine enough, but when her back is turned, she hears them celebrating their victory in congratulatory whispers that they dare not speak before her. Not now.
She has every right to be upset. Yes, they had known that this was all part of the job… yes, they had always been prepared for the worst… yes, they’d both been anticipating this day since they’d first picked up their weapons…
The grave she digs is still too shallow. She kicks the shovel down deeper.
The mistake had been sloppy, and that is what upsets her the most. If the boy had just left the tactics to his advisor- had just played it a little bit more safe… then they wouldn’t be here. Of course, Leif couldn’t have known about the mages that had warped between their ranks, but even the ballista had been too much… not to mention all of the cavaliers…
Everyone else was celebrating that they hadn’t lost more, and it’s painful to know that if it had been anyone else, Machyua would be there with them, counting their single loss as a win.
Her arms are tired. She hasn’t rested since the battle, and the earth she moves is heavy. She leans against the side of the pit with a deep breath- just for a moment. She reaches behind her and finds what she’s looking for without bearing to actually see; the stiff form of a hand. Machyua wraps her fingers around it, running her thumb over the surface of the glove. The hand she holds does not squeeze back.
What remains of her lover lays neatly assembled on a nearby tarp; the fabric has long since gone brown with blood and dirt stains. She’ll have to burn it after this. Brighton is barely recognizable now; the dried ooze of Jormungard’s magic caked across his face and body like black paint- seeping through the remains of his clothes and dyeing his skin a mottled grey. His other arm was never recovered, but someone had tried to bandage the stump in a hasty attempt at healing. His armor lays to the side; warped and dented with dozens of cracks. A ballista bolt still sticks out from the front; the final nail in the coffin. Rigor mortis has set in now, and despite his stillness and pale complexion, Machyua could almost believe he was alive; frozen against the ground with that final expression of fear- waiting for a rescue spell that would never come.
She hasn’t closed his eyes yet.
For a little while longer, she will pretend that she is not alone.