"As would I," Francel replies, "if such a thing could be endeavored."

The young lord knows these feelings well, but his heart is well beyond such platitudes. He has long accepted that lives are without price, and that Halone does not offer her fallen warriors wholesale to be bargained and bought. He continues tearing off the petals of his lilies with a kind of savage methodology — the sight of the flowers floating on the breeze brings him some small measure of peace. Again, words rise to his lips; again, he tells himself to withhold them. There is no point in saying anything about Haurchefant now, he reminds himself. He is dead. It is over. There is nothing left.