Chapter 8: The Weight of Loss
"Grief is not a wound. It is an amputation. You do not heal from it. You learn to move without the limb."
— Knightly_Ink
_ _ _
The graveyard sat on a hill overlooking Old Uthean.
Not the new city. Not the one people were rebuilding. This was the old place—the one that had burned, been rebuilt, then burned again. The one people stopped talking about.
Adrian knelt in front of a headstone.
Hillan's.
There was nothing buried beneath it. Just earth and a name.
Maria had made it after Hillan's death, just before the Utheani war.
He didn't need to read the inscription.
He already knew it.
His hand rested against the stone anyway, fingers tracing the letters slowly.
I. L. L. A. N.
Again.
And again.
The sun was almost gone. The sky had dimmed into that quiet space between day and night. One moon hung low. The second followed, pale and distant.
He had been there for hours.
Not praying.
He had stopped doing that a long time ago.
He just… stayed.
The wind moved through the hill, carrying distant sounds with it—voices, a door closing, someone calling out.
Life going on.
Unaffected.
His jaw tightened.
I should have been faster.
The thought came sharp.
I should have seen it.
I should have—
He exhaled slowly, cutting it off.
Didn't matter.
It never changed anything.
He looked at the stone.
It didn't answer.
It never would.
Footsteps behind him.
He didn't turn.
"I told everyone to leave me alone."
"You did."
Karis.
Of course.
"I'm not everyone," she added.
He didn't respond.
She stepped closer, stopping beside him.
Her gaze dropped to the headstone.
"Aunt insisted this was done as a reminder," she said. "Before she…"
She didn't finish.
"I know."
A pause.
"Do you come here often?"
"No."
Another pause.
"…First time."
Karis lowered herself to the ground beside him. Careful. Like she wasn't sure if she should stay, but did anyway.
"The search hasn't found anything," she said. "Aunty is a ghost as it is."
"I know."
"Tobey thinks she's being held. Christopher doesn't. Valhalla thinks the triune might have killed her as reckoning."
Adrian stared ahead.
"What do you think?"
Karis didn't answer immediately.
"I think," she said finally, "you're going to break yourself chasing answers that aren't there yet."
He turned to her.
His eyes were red. Not from crying. Just… worn down.
"What else am I supposed to do?"
"Go home," she said. "Eat something. Sleep. Let your people handle what you trained them for."
He looked away again.
"And then?"
"Then you go after them," she said. "Properly."
Her voice hardened.
"You don't do it like this."
That sat there for a moment.
Adrian looked back at the headstone.
His father's name.
No body.
No closure.
"When did you get so wise?" he muttered.
Karis let out a quiet breath through her nose.
"I've always been like this. You just don't listen."
That almost pulled something out of him.
The corner of his mouth shifted slightly.
It didn't last though.
He pushed himself to his feet.
Karis stood as well.
"What now?"
Adrian looked out over the city.
Lights flickered in the distance. People moving on.
Far beyond that—everything else.
The ones responsible.
"I'll go home," he said.
He rested his hand on the stone one last time.
Didn't say anything.
Then he turned away.
He didn't look back.
_ Haven World - The Grand Library _
The manor was quiet.
Guards saluted as he passed. No one spoke.
His door was open.
Inside, everything was where it should be.
But a letter.
Tobey's handwriting.
Adrian unfolded it.
No leads.
He set it down.
Walked to his excelet.
Opened it.
No comfort in it. Just a way of escaping the world.
He stepped inside anyway.
The door closed behind him.
Silence settled.
Adrian sat down.
He just stayed there.
Waiting for something in him to stop feeling… off-balance.
Out of sync.
Until he could move again without forcing it.
Out there, things were still moving.
In here—
Nothing was.
And for now, that was enough.