Chapter 47| Crossing the Bones
Ashkar insisted on leading the crossing himself, accompanied by six of his most trusted warriors, departing the encampment three days after the Sandwalker attack once the wounded had stabilized and Mother Ash had granted her formal blessing for the journey.
"He says the path to Elf lands crosses what his people call the Bone Flats," Sera translated, walking alongside Allen at the head of the traveling party as the encampment shrank behind them into the shimmering heat haze. "Old battlefield, from before the sky broke. Many died there. Ground still remembers."
"Remembers how?" Vivian asked warily.
Sera’s expression grew troubled. "You will see soon enough."
The Bone Flats revealed themselves within the day’s first hours of travel — a vast, sun-bleached expanse where the cracked earth gave way to countless fragments of ancient bone, some clearly beast, others unmistakably humanoid, scattered across the landscape in a silent, sprawling testament to some long-forgotten catastrophe.
"This is a mass grave," Myria said quietly, studying the scattered remains with grim, clinical focus despite the weight of the observation. "An entire war’s worth of casualties, by the look of it."
"The last true battle between our peoples," Sera confirmed softly. "Before the final split. Before both sides retreated to lick their wounds and blame the other for what the world had become." She glanced toward the horizon, expression distant. "Some say the ground here still holds anger. That Sandwalkers avoid this place, not from respect, but from fear of whatever lingers."
They crossed carefully, Ashkar’s warriors moving with the solemn, practiced reverence of people walking through hallowed ground rather than mere terrain, and Allen found himself matching their pace instinctively, an unexpected weight settling over his chest as he took in the sheer, silent scale of loss surrounding them.
"How many people do you think died here?" Irene asked quietly, uncharacteristically subdued.
"Thousands, at minimum," Myria said grimly. "Possibly tens of thousands, given the field’s scope." She paused. "And this was just one battle, in what was apparently a much longer conflict."
Everlyn knelt briefly beside a particularly dense cluster of remains, palm pressed gently against the cracked earth, expression troubled as she absorbed whatever faint, lingering resonance her bloodline detected beneath the surface.
’The ground remembers everything planted in it,’ her notepad read, echoing words she’d once shared with Allen in a considerably gentler garden, months and a world away. ’This soil remembers grief. So much grief.’
Allen rested a gentle hand against her shoulder, and she leaned into the touch briefly before rising, expression firming with quiet, determined resolve.
---
They made camp that evening at the Bone Flats’ far edge, the encampment’s fires kept deliberately small and contained, Ashkar’s warriors maintaining careful, watchful shifts throughout the night despite the eerie stillness of the surrounding terrain.
Allen found Vivian seated slightly apart from the others, head tilted toward the vast, silent expanse behind them, expression unusually troubled.
"You’ve been quiet," he said, settling beside her.
"This place," Vivian admitted, "sounds wrong. Not dangerous, exactly. Just... hollow. Like the echoes here never quite finished happening." She shook her head slightly, as if trying to dislodge the sensation. "I spent years learning to read a room through sound alone, Allen. I’ve never encountered silence that felt this deliberately heavy before."
"Grief has a way of lingering," Allen said softly, thinking of Everlyn’s earlier observation. "Even in places that shouldn’t be able to hold onto it."
Vivian was quiet for a long moment, her hand finding his in the dim firelight. "Do you think we’re capable of actually fixing this?" she asked eventually, voice carrying rare, unguarded uncertainty. "An entire world’s worth of accumulated tragedy, stretching back generations? That’s considerably larger than anything we’ve faced before, Allen. Even the Leviathan, even Edward’s duel — this feels different. Heavier."
"I don’t know," Allen admitted honestly. "But I know we won’t find out by turning back now. And I know that whatever happens, we’re not facing it alone. Ashkar’s people, hopefully the Elves eventually, all of us together." He squeezed her hand gently. "That has to count for something, even against a challenge this size."
Vivian’s answering smile was faint but genuine, some of her earlier unease easing beneath the quiet certainty of his words. "You have an irritating habit of making impossible things sound manageable," she murmured.
"Would you prefer I lied and said this was going to be easy?"
"No," Vivian said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I think I’d rather have the truth, even when it’s heavy. Especially when it’s heavy."
They sat together in comfortable, watchful silence as the fire slowly burned low, the Bone Flats stretching silent and vast behind them, and somewhere ahead, beyond the horizon’s shimmering heat haze, the first distant, jagged silhouettes of Desert Elf territory began to take shape against the deepening night sky.
Ashkar joined them a while later, settling nearby with the easy, comfortable familiarity of a man who’d stopped viewing them as strangers days ago, and spoke quietly to Sera, who translated with a faint, tired smile.
"He says tomorrow we reach the border markers. From there, the crossing becomes considerably more delicate. His warriors will not enter Elf territory itself — old treaties forbid it, even now. You will need to continue the final stretch without us."
"That’s not exactly reassuring," Irene said from across the fire, having wandered over at the sound of conversation.
"Ashkar trusts you," Sera said simply. "He would not send you forward otherwise. But trust between his people and mine only extends so far, even now. Some walls take longer than a season to lower, especially ones built from grief this deep."
Allen absorbed that carefully, glancing toward the silent expanse of bone and memory stretching behind them. "We understand," he said. "And we’re grateful for everything Ashkar’s people have already given us. Whatever happens beyond the border, that won’t be forgotten."
Ashkar, seeming to understand the sentiment even without full translation, inclined his head in solemn acknowledgment, scarred face carrying an expression that needed no words to convey its weight.
They settled into sleep not long after, the fire dimming slowly to embers, and Allen lay awake a while longer, listening to the quiet, steady breathing of his wives around him, and the distant, mournful wind sweeping across the Bone Flats behind them — a sound that felt, even now, like it was still searching for something it had lost a very long time ago.