Sunrise Gate

Chapter 35

Chapter 35

The sun has yet to rise over the fields surrounding Ebonhawke. The collection begins early, for those of us unable to sleep, wearily moving bodies and whatever possessions that may have belonged to them. Not many are out now, most warriors of the night collapsing into bed without an issue, their bodies shutting down. For those families whose soldiers survived, the sight was beautiful. For many families of Guardians, however, the lack of a man or woman sleeping in bed is impossible to bear. Children’s crying was heard throughout the city for a long hour after the battle ended but it soon faded as parents consoled and their children fell asleep out of exhaustion.

The townspeople did everything they could to welcome us home. Only a third of the Guardians that fought survived. Surviving was a feat to celebrate, indeed, except no one wanted to celebrate. They wanted warm fires and soup, blankets and a soft place to sit. A view of the stars outside. A place to feel hugged and loved and safe. The Gods would not be home tonight, but for a little while it felt like they were.

I didn’t stay inside the city long. Only long enough to slip a note under Adam’s door and then disappear, telling him I was alive and okay. I walked Demi and Athair to my home and helped them settle in for the night, tending to our wounds.

As I watched them lie down, they insisted I join but I told them I wanted to go for a walk, which I did, but instead I went back to the field, where I searched the bodies of the dead, looking for information about who they were and what they thought. I wanted to hunt the identities of ghosts.

The night air felt refreshing, even among a mass of dead, Ebonhawke was Ebonhawke. Never before have I felt more connected to this land. Night continues on, I think, but is Siafi really dead? Her threat ended only hours ago and yet the world has returned to normal. Animals roam, the occasional birds call to another, the wind kicks dust into the air. Nothing has changed, yet everything has. I walk to the body of a man, a locket chained around his neck rests near his head. I open it,  a woman’s picture on one side, her lips breaking a slight smile with her eyes open wide. The other side is a boy and girl sitting next to one another, smiling and giggling. Most won’t ever remember this day as a normal one though, I think.

I walk to another body, its lower half missing but in the person’s hand is a journal. His final moments were spent sprawled on the ground writing, his life bleeding away from the wounds he must have suffered in a blast. His thumb holds a page open and I look inside, a note is scribbled in sloppy, hurried hand writing. Its message reads clearly,  “I love you Elise. I’ll miss you.”

I lower the book and step over several Sabres to another body of a man laying on his back, a chain around his neck. I lift it, surprised to find the chain intact while his neck has several large gashes in it. On the end of the chain is a hare’s foot. I feel its softness, the gentle feel its white hair has on my hand. I lower the foot back over the man’s heart.

I look to Siafi’s body, in the distance I can see it remains where it was left, my sword buried through her heart. What did she mean ‘I will never be gone?’ Her body stays here, yet the mists… they fled. Was that her?

I begin to walk, no longer stopping as I realize more and more carry an object or two with them. One man has a woman’s scarf wrapped around his hand, still clinging to his sword. A woman wears a bracelet, “Brian,” engraved in cursive. A gray haired man, the oldest I’ve seen, has a cloth tied around his head, black markings drawn under his eyes. A mother lays with her arm curled around a child’s straw toy. A father holds a picture of Hymir his son must have drawn. I look up at the stars, their light beginning to fade as the sun rises. All these things, I think. All these random oddities these men and women came into battle with. They mean nothing to us. But they chose these objects knowing their death would come at any moment and if they died they wanted these things with them. These objects gave them strength. The thought of them reminded them of what they held dear and they held those objects tighter. It gave them courage. And they died with them, their final hours spent with them. All these objects - lockets and scarves and toys and drawings, their nothing abstract either. They’re the simple things Humans possess.

“Lyra,” I hear Demi’s voice and it scares me out of my thoughts.

I turn around and see her and Athair on the hillside, waving for me to come over. I tip toe through the field, cautious of the dead, mindful not to disturb them to the best extent I can. I look around, watching several volunteers already hauling bodies away in carts and over to the Guardian Graveyard, the emotions drained from them.

As I come closer I see the body Demi and Athair stand over and they step away, giving me space. “Lynx…” I whisper, touching his cheek ever so carefully. I look over his body, the marks on his face slowly healing already. I look at his face, the tired look in his eyes awakens memories I had long forgotten.

“There she is! My little tom boy gal!” His voice is distant, yet I see him lifting me into the air and twirling me around, the tower walls spinning all around me. I see the shrine my parent’s made to Hymir, candles hugging the wall, all lit and flickering, their soft glow warming and comforting.

“Uncle Lynx!” The little girl I was shouts back giggly. Lynx laughs back, the youthful man happy as ever. He lowers me to the ground and my father comes to his side, slapping a hand on his shoulder and I remember the two of them standing there in front of me, towering over me. I remember them as giants, defiant and strong, able and ready for the world around them.

The memory fades and I find myself smiling. I begin to search around him, trying to find that one thing he brought with him. His find his sword, the engraved blade has patterns of thorns running down it - a family heirloom of his. I lift it, weighing it in my hands, remember the first time I held this sword.

“Careful now, Lyra,” Lynx said to me as we stood outside the tower next to several bales of hay. “I know you’re excited, everyone is for their first time sparring. But please, this blade is very dangerous. Use it with care.”

My mother stands next to the two of us watching. Lynx puts the blade in my hand, showing me how to weigh it and find a balanced grip. He shows me a few techniques very patiently as I fail to do them repeatedly but he stands there teaching me over and over. We begin to spar, remaining in silence, hitting sword against sword. I remember how I won, how excited I was.

“I did it!” I squealed with joy. “I beat Uncle Lynx!” My mother and Lynx laughed. I was still too young to understand he let me win.

“Yes you did,” he said, watching me as I looked at this sword. “Do you like the design?”

“It’s pretty,” I said. “Very much.”

“Why don’t you hold onto it for a little while then, while you train.”

“Lynx, you don’t have to do that,” my mother said to him.

“But I want to,” he winked at me.

I remember running up to him and throwing my arms around him, smiling, whispering “thank you” to him.

The memory finishes and I find myself looking around him for anything else. When I find nothing, I resort to looking inside his pockets and around his neck and in his hands. But nothing. “He has to have brought something… anything…” I whisper to myself. Every person has had something. Something special they needed to feel brave. Lynx is no exception. I lean in closer, looking more carefully. But he has nothing. I look at his gray hair, the blood running across it and staining his cheek, my eyes following its trail as it moves down to his eye. Then I see it. My eyes follow his, down the hillside and across the field of dead and past where Siafi’s body remains on my sword to where the ramp leads into Sunrise Gate. The sun is rising fast now, approaching the beaks of Sunrise Gate’s Hawks.

Lynx didn’t need anything to comfort him, I think, a teary smile breaking its way out of me. Because it’s all here, right in front of him this entire time.