Beneath the Dragoneye Moons
Chapter 655: Countless Mournful Dawns IX

As the years rolled by, as [Manor] expanded and improved, we were able to have more and more specialized rooms and amenities.

One portion in particular continued to expand, to our great dismay. An entire wing of the [Manor], occasionally open to guests and the only place Iona had convinced me to allow an expert to set up lethal wards to protect.

For many years I’d used the summer solstice as my time to grieve and mourn those I’d lost over the years, the day I’d left Remus and returned to Rolland. The day I’d lost my family, most of my friends. My country, my mission, my job. I had marked the day for years, finding a way to remember. Prayer, meditation, remembrance, I’d run the gauntlet.

But… the summer solstice wasn’t a good day to remember the dead. It was a happy time, a joyful festival in almost the entire world. Shutting myself away and being miserable while everyone else was celebrating the longest day of the year and having fun just didn’t mesh. Not when the autumn equinox was the day of the dead for nearly everyone else, when I could mourn with Iona.

The closed off wing was guarded by a great stone gate, words carved deep into the granite.

We didn’t fail them.

We gave them a chance.

It was the autumn equinox, and we were all wearing black as we passed through the gates, our eyes brimming with tears. We started off in the great hallway, a thousand stands lining each wall. More than I ever hoped for were occupied. The nicest ones were a folded red robe and an unbroken sword. Far too many were a scrap of cloth and a broken blade. Each one of them had one of Iona’s portraits behind them, a beaming representation of what the woman had looked like in life. Mei’er’s portrait was drawn when she was meditating under a waterfall. Ling’s was a snapshot of her splashing in a pond with some children, her smile brighter than the flowers. Yue’s portrait had captured the moment Lunaris had granted her a minor blessing. One of Iona’s favorites, she’d joined her sisters in the hallway not four years ago.

We’d known them all. Every girl who entered the Sect, every woman who trained with us, we’d known their name, their faces. Their hopes, their dreams. Their petty squabbles and greatest triumphs.

Now, they were resting, at peace, while we continued. Immortal. Undying. We visited the place now and then, but the autumn equinox was the day entirely devoted to them and their memory.

They had all died the first death, but as long as we remembered and spoke their name, they would not die a second time.

“Fang’er, I brought your favorite dumplings.” Iona placed the specially spiced dumpling in its place, done with the unique blend the woman had enjoyed in life. “Xia, I got the flute music for a new song you would’ve enjoyed. Lan, I’ve got news for you. Zhen has gone to her final rest, but maybe you know that already. Ting and Wei finally got together, just like you said they would all those years ago. Rong…”

Iona knew them all, knew their favorite things. What they wanted, what they loved, and today, on the day the sun faded and let the darkness take over, the day where we celebrated and remembered death, the great day of worship for Thanatos, she talked to them all one last time.

I had known them all myself. Shan. Jing. Lu. Miao. Ru, and all the hundreds more. I hadn’t brought anything for them, not like Iona did, but I brought up a memory of each one. A personal moment I’d had with every woman.

I was proud to say, in all the years since we founded the Sect - there had not been a single death on the Sect grounds. Not a member, not a petitioner, not even when the Sect hosted others. I was the arbiter, and I decreed life.

It wasn’t just the women of the Sect who were laid to rest in our hallway. The hallway branched, and branched again, each a different hall, each a different set of memories. Gods, the fact that we each had multiple rooms or hallways was depressing in its own way. We knew enough people, we’d experienced enough loss, to fill multiple graveyards. The dark side of Immortality.

Nina had a memorial to all the innocents who got caught up in her activities. Her assassinations were clean and surgical, removing only the people needed, but no matter how much she studied the situation, no matter what research she did, it was still hundreds to thousands of people moving quickly after. Succession was occasionally a bloody business, and Nina blamed herself for accidents that occurred in the chaos afterwards, no matter how justified or not. She kept a ledger of impacted families, doling out a small number of coins to them every year.

Iona had a separate room for the remains of the Valkyries she’d been able to find, along with a record of last known sightings. As far as we could tell, there were five left in the entire world - two of them Iona and Nina. The Order was all but dead.

New knightly Orders were just starting to rise in the new era, and Iona had spent some time trying to install the Valkyrie’s values into the heart of the new Orders. A different way to carry the legacy forwards.

Sara had her own room, only a few names so far but with space for thousands more. Auri had a graveyard. Fenrir kept an ossuary filled with gigantic draconic skulls. Amber didn’t have her own room, but we’d noticed a set of gems woven into her braid that never left, that she occasionally fingered with a sad smile.

Artemis had books, and had politely asked me not to look into them, even if she should die.

I had a wall, and obelisks. Before, and after. Names I didn’t know and lives I’d been intimately familiar with.

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Was it still remembering a person when it was only an echo of a whisper? When all I knew about them was they had been a Ranger, and their name was carved on the wall? The only thing I knew about Ranger Maximillius was he’d been one of the earlier names carved on the wall, one of the first to fall in service of the organization and country. That was all. What memory did I have of him? Apart from a long-forgotten memory of Night, what other impact did he have?

I let my fingers brush over the weak shield on the wall, protecting it from the limited elements in the secured pocket dimension. My barely-existing finger oils and minor friction were the greatest threat to the memorial, and I’d been sure to protect it even from myself.

I made it to the first name I recognized.

Julia.

“Mom… how are you?” I whispered to the wall, my eyes still brimming with tears. “It’s been a while. I’m sorry I haven’t come by to talk. We’re still happy. I wish you were here. I wish you could see everything we’ve built. I wish you could see what I’ve become.”

I wish I could hear you tell me how proud you were of me.

Gods, she’d done her absolute best with nothing, hadn’t she? Basically orphaned herself early, she’d built a life with dad in a new town. Given an undeniably weird kid, she’d pulled out all the stops she knew of to try and ensure my future, trying to make me happy. I’d seen small community politics and parents arranging their children’s future ten thousand times by now, and I was stunned at how well she’d managed to do. She’d always been thinking of me and my happiness, even when I’d been too much of a mule-headed idiot to see it myself.

Kerberos… damn, I even felt a little bad for him now. I didn’t want to completely absolve him, but he’d been a damn kid in almost the same situation, reacting the way he’d been taught his whole life. He made dumbass mistakes, but again - kid. When his parents realized he was fucking up, they sent him away to a place to learn discipline. At which point the Ranger leadership decided to set him up to die.

I didn’t regret my actions. I’d done what I needed to for myself, but I could feel some sympathy for the boy whose whole life had been dictated to him.

“Sorry you got screwed over.” I whispered to the name carved on the wall. For he, too, was a memory, and deserved remembrance.

Enough about him, there were only so many hours in the day and oh so many names.

“Dad… I know I told you I worked as a guard, just like you. Never managed to escort a Senator though, no Praetorian Guard for me. I did arrest one though! I’ve told you all this, but secret time… did I tell you I’d also been an adventurer? Can you believe it? I…”

I spilled the story, wishing against hope so badly to hear the words that I might’ve hallucinated them.

I love you.

I moved onto Lyra, my friend, my anchor. The only reason I hadn’t gone nuts or ended up doing something unbearably stupid as a kid. More stupid. I remembered our first meeting, I remembered our last meeting.

I remembered the pyre.

I remembered the people in Aquiliea. How Flavia had tried to help, how they’d tried to reach out to me. I’d been an idiot and hadn’t seen it. The fire. Meeting my brother for the first time.

Saying goodbye for the last time.

Did he think of me as he grew up? Did he remember? I’d gotten a many-copied-over diary, but it didn’t reveal his thoughts. Had anyone been named after me?

Then there were the Rangers.

Julius, who’d just been trying to keep a dumb kid from killing herself, who’d relented and given me a chance, THE chance, to live my life.

Strong and silent Origen, murdered in Perinthus.

Arthur, who loved my songs, and who had repeated them so often as to become The Bard in history.

Maximus, jack of all trades, master of none. Without him, the School would’ve never continued after Artemis left.

Kallisto, frontline of the team, golden hair and charming smile. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out he was Iona’s grandfather to the Nth degree. If he was all human’s grandfather.

I remember meeting them at the gate. Artemis making the introductions. Traveling with them, singing with them, eating, training, fighting with them.

“You guys saved my life.” I whispered to them, ignoring the whispers I could hear from the other rooms. “What I wouldn’t give for one more campfire. One more day on the road. One more rendition of the Iliad. Sneaking out one more time.”

I closed my eyes, letting the tears fall to the ground.

The Sentinels. Sky, and his love of flight. Magic’s smoke and mirrors. Acquisition’s sticky fingers. Sealing’s barriers and synergies. I could see all of them in me and the path I took. Brawling’s good humor and cunning disguise. Ocean’s desire to do nothing more than kick back and be on his boat, on the waves. Nature grumpily growing everything. Bluebeard - Hunting - and Katastrofi. Did he ever make those mosaics? I wish I could’ve seen them, seen the artist hiding away. Did Destruction ever use tsunamis like he planned?

At least Night was still alive. I should write a letter to him tomorrow.

But today was for the dead.

Albina, who’d done my hair and had been my friend. Catonus, who’d worked with my dad. Augustus, who… actually, I didn’t need to remember him. He’d successfully entered the realm of legends.

I’d taken a page out of Night’s book, and the hallway was lined with stone, thousands of names engraved in a tiny script. 9,381 names, and there was only one more that might be added one day.

All the new names were in the next room, and it’s where I started to have my doubts.

“Iris… are you still alive?” I wondered about the selkie teammate I’d had once upon a time. Yugure no Shirayuki, the School’s coach. Leona, one of the second-in-commands of Katerina’s Legion. Robin, the camp prefect. Optio Henrietta, who’d rolled her eyes at how I’d rendered the medical lines useless in battle. Ardenus, who’d been in charge of communication. Wren, the Primus Pilus. Countess Lakewood, who’d met us when we’d fought Vorlers shortly after arriving. Stefan, the werewolf who’d helped orient me at the School. Inquisitor Ren, who’d threatened divine punishment if I’d messed around too much with biomancy. A thousand other names, other lives. People who’d lived full and vibrant lives, whose paths had intersected with mine once upon a time. Students I’d sat down at a table with once, teachers who’d mentored me over years. Soldiers I’d marched and fought with, Sentinels I’d analyzed and discussed with.

Bridget, the dryad who’d shaped Auri’s life. Plato, her first teacher, had been in the last room.

So many lives that had touched and shaped mine, from the smallest way to the largest. So many people who were dead, but I wasn’t quite sure who had gone to their final rest, and who had survived the trials and come out stronger on the other side.

I understood Night better. I had the shadow of understanding just how powerful one of the ancient names on the wall fully manifesting back into existence was.

How painful the hope could be.

Harper had left no body. The bubbly, cheerful [Quartermaster] might be out there, having found a new life, a new family. She might have died without realizing it.

I didn’t know, I couldn’t know. I could simply pray, remember, and when enough time had passed, accept that her soul had once again entered Samsara.

“Brrrpt?” Auri fluttered over through the hallways, alighting on my shoulder. A trail of precious gemstones were left in her wake.

I let my hand trace over one last name, one last memory, whispering softly to Auri.

“It’s morning already?”

It felt like I’d only been here a few minutes. That I had more lives to remember, more memories to honor.

“Brrrpt.” Auri confirmed with a single nod.

But it was no longer the day of the dead. I could no longer wander endlessly through my memories.

It was the next day, and the day was for the living.