“Why do you burn your men?” The question is so simple, yet it throws me off-guard. Nobody asks such things. “Do you really want me to explain it to you?” I ask her warily. Surely it would only come across as more callousness, to start theorising at a time when a less heartless man might mourn. But she only nods. So I breathe in, mulling over a simple explanation. “Well… man’s shape is changeable,” I tell her. “In the form of ash, one may travel on the wind far further than one might on foot.”
