"It's funny," Ridahne mused between bites. "I used to hate fish. Not that I thought it was gross--I grew up on it. It's just that it was most of what we ate, being fishermen and all. I got so sick of it that when I first came to the palace, I almost never ate fish because there were other options available to me. And now that I've been so far away from the sea for so long, it's been a while since I've had good fish. Never ever thought I'd miss it, but I do." 
Ajoran studied Darin. "So you do not live near the sea, then? Was this the first time you've seen it, coming down here?" Ajoran was from the mountains on the edge of Azurei, so not especially close to the coast. But he'd been to the sea even as a boy. And though he couldn't see it every day like Ridahne had, he could not imagine what it would be like to know he could not make the effort to see it with relative accessibility. 

Ridahne smirked as Darin told of her dislike of sleeping alone. "Honestly, it was good fun to go back to the barracks. And they put up with me relatively well. But I wasn't entirely welcome either. We were probably going to sleep in the rooms they provided us tonight, but don't feel like you have to stay away." Ridahne never said it outright, but it was odd for her to sleep away from Darin, too. She knew sometimes Darin liked to sleep with the horses, as they were as much her family as Ridahne was. But she put out the offer anyway.

At last they finished their breakfast, and wordlessly Ridahne got up and began to head towards the gardens. The time had come. But when Ridahne reached the doorway, Ajoran stopped her. She looked questioningly back at her fiancé, and he could see some of the anxiety roiling around behind her eyes. "She's not there, Isfahan," he said gently. 
"Not in the burial grounds?" The idea seemed ludicrous. Where else would she be? 
"No. Come, I'll show you." 

Ajoran led the way, diverting from the doorway that led out to the gardens and headed to the back of the palace, through a hallway frequented by various servants, and out a small, unadorned doorway. Outside the door were stacks of firewood, barrels, crates, and other containers for storage of various goods or materials. Beyond the brick-paved patio was the same dry, scrubby landscape that seemed to be most of this region of Azurei. Not quite the Dust Sea, and not quite honest soil. And a few paces off lay a white, lopsided stone that might once have been a brick of the palace itself long ago. It was starkly out of place among the red-brown dirt, and Ridahne did not have to be told to know it was all that served for a grave marker. No name was painted or chiseled onto the stone. No title, no offerings of wilted flowers, no smear of black tattoo ink across the face of the stone. 

Ridahne bristled immediately. She'd been relatively calm up until that point, and now that it had come to the actual moment, she wasn't sure what to do or how to feel. Ajoran's thick fingers found Ridahne's palm and touched it lightly, as if to offer only the suggestion of a hand-hold. Ridahne's slim fingers coiled around his, and her other hand reached out to grab Darin's. Her grip was hard. Cold. Vicelike. Yet she didn't take any more steps forward--not yet--and Ajoran did not lead her further. Ridahne was quiet. And yet, as she stood there, eyes fixed to the white stone as if she thought she could vaporize it with only her gaze, Ajoran could feel an intensity rise up in Ridahne. It was a slow, soft thing at first, and then he could feel it like the heat radiating from a forge. And like fire, it was uncomfortable to be so close to, or it would have been if it had been anyone else standing with her. But these were her people, and they both knew by now the virulence of Ridahne's ire once it was stirred. 

Like a cork bursting out of a bottle under too much pressure, Ridahne shot forward suddenly with a low growl in her throat and descended on the patch of unadorned dirt with all the viciousness of a demon from some dark underworld. She kicked at the dirt, sending curtains of red dust flying with each strike. She released a scream, an animal howl into the quickly-warming dawn and then spat, picking up rocks and hurling them away with startling force. And then came the curses. Some were rather universal, and some version of them existed in every corner and every tongue of Astra. Others seemed rather specifically Azurian, and referenced some cultural concept or another. Ridahne cursed in Azurian, in Orosi, in Eluri, in the speech of the humans, and what little siren curses she knew. She wished that Khaltira's face would decay first (a particularly nasty sentiment in Azurei), she called upon the animals of the wild to come and exhume what was left of her body to gnaw the bones. She cried out to the Keeper, beseeching them to see the truth of the evil soul in its care and deal with her accordingly. She vowed that her name would be forgotten, and her legacy would be dust. And most of all, she cursed the woman for ultimately being the reason Ridahne lost her friend and working partner, Takhun. In very rapid Azurian, she kept shouting, "YOU TOOK HIM FROM ME. YOU TOOK HIM FROM ME!" Again and again until at last she drew in a breath to scream again, but the air caught in her lungs and came out instead as a gasping sob. 

Ajoran had stood back, letting Ridahne do what she needed to do on her own. But when he heard that sudden change, he went to her and wrapped his arms around her firmly. She sagged into him, and he was practically holding her upright. She'd spoken her piece, and unsurprisingly, she felt no bittersweet gratitude towards the traitorous woman for causing the chain of events that led her to Darin. The Sota-Sol got that pass. Darin might never love the matriarch, but Ridahne knew her and knew her heart was just. Her actions could be forgiven for their eventual good outcome. But not Khaltira. No matter what good this path had brought her to, Khaltira's actions caused Ridahne to murder people she would rather have left alive. And that left a dark, bloody stain on her soul that no amount of good deeds would ever wash away, and that could not be forgiven.