Su Li kicked open the heavy oak door. The room was thick with the pungent scent of medicine and the particular decaying odor of the elderly.
Saina lay on the bed.
She wore the silk gown Su Li had bought for her in Grey Gull Port forty years ago.
The dress was far too large for her now, hanging loose around her shriveled body.
A black cloth covered her face.
Even in death, she insisted on hiding her face, determined to conceal the ugliness she had become.
Su Li walked over and lifted her up together with the blanket. She was incredibly light.
The plump woman who had once made his thigh go numb beneath the covers was now nothing but a sack of bones.
In Wading Village, the Old Locust Tree still stood, though a huge hollow had opened in the middle of its trunk.
In the graveyard behind the mountain, the grass atop Old Buck's and Aunt Martha's graves had changed who knew how many times.
Su Li dug the pit himself and placed Saina inside.
He filled it flat with yellow earth using the shovel, then pressed a large bluestone slab over it.
These times were too chaotic. If he erected a tombstone for a baron's wife, grave robbers might dig it up one day.
Elena stood beside Su Li, dressed in an exquisitely tailored black velvet gown and a mourning hat draped in black gauze.
She had completely shed the fiery temper and sword-drawing ways she had possessed in her youth.
Forty years had passed. Old Ford had long since died, and the entire burden of the Iris Family had fallen upon her shoulders.
She had learned to play along in the royal capital's circles of power, learned to put on the airs of a noble