Darin went over to place a gentle hand on Tsura’s nose. She wasn’t sure she wanted the male Azurei touching Ridahne’s blades, but the truth was she didn’t know how to stop him. She wasn’t sure that she should stop him. He was right. The knives shouldn’t be left bloody, but she wasn’t sure how to take care of them. The Seed-Bearer supposed that as long as he returned them, she couldn’t be upset. Darin knew it was slightly cynical, but until she saw the blades returned, she would be keeping an eye on him. He had to know that.

Darin’s Azurein was just as accented as his common, “Please make sure that you do. As for what to do with the dead.”

Darin had to pause to think about that. She wasn’t sure what to do with the bodies. Some were Eluri and some were human. Darin wasn’t sure what the customs for the Eluri were. She knew of a couple human traditions. In Lively they buried their dead in a special place call a graveyard. In her village the dead were buried in fields to help crops grow. In both places they burned the bodies of those that felt didn’t earn the honor of being buried. Darin felt the scowl etch on her face. She had no clue of they would be honored by having their bodies burned, but it seemed like a good way to get rid of the bodies.

Darin’s voice was harsh, “Burn them. If you cannot discover anything from the bodies just burn them. Let them be forgotten.”

Talbot let out a snort and Darin shook her head as she let Tsura to go check on her steed. Darin forced herself to take a few deep breaths. She needed to calm down. She didn’t know these people. Just because they wanted to kill her didn’t give her the right to hate them for no reason. She had no idea who they were or what kind of people they had been. For all she knew they had just been hired to kill her. It might not have been personal at all. In fact, she was willing to bet that it wasn’t. They didn’t care about her. They cared about The Seed-Bearer. They might not even care about that. They might have just wished for her dead so they could get paid. Darin had no idea, and now that they were dead, she would never know. She just wished she knew if they were connected to Martin and his crew. Darin guessed she wouldn’t know that either. She had so many questions and no answers.

Though she did have work to be doing. The Azurei was right. Blades shouldn’t be left a mess and she had not cleaned hers. Darin pulled out her sickle. For a moment she just stared at the blood. She had killed a man. While she hadn’t ended his life directly, he had bled out because she had chopped his arm off. She took a few shuddering breathes as she thought about that. She had never killed before. Darin could have just left him tied to the tree. She forced herself to disregard that thought. Could haves and should haves didn’t change anything. What was done was done. 

With that in mind Darin pulled out a cloth and started cleaning off the dead man’s blood. She tried her best to focus on the task, but she kept stopping to just stare at the blood of the man she killed before he could kill her. Was that what her life was now? Kill or be killed? Darin wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to that. Eventually she couldn’t take it anymore. She let the sickle fall to the ground as she practically dashed outside of the stable.

Darin stood breathing outside of the building as she closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sky. She wasn’t sure that she could do this. She had been thinking these thoughts for a while, but this was different. She couldn’t explain the difference. She just wasn’t sure she could do this. She didn’t want to kill anymore. It made her feel sick. It was almost like a stomachache but different; like a stomachache in her heart or mind. She didn’t want to do this anymore. She had to though. She was the only one who could. Apparently, she was always the only one that could. That thought was just plain depressing. Astra might just be doomed.