There are endings, Reader, and this is one. Of all the wounds I have suffered, the marks of sword and lash and claw—the very worst left no scar. The greatest part of me, my very heart, will forever lie scattered with the ashes on the winds of Perfugium. With her. The empty silence where she used to be is with me still, even as I mark this parchment. It will never leave me, though I drive it back with a word. Always it returns. Valka is dead. You see, Dorayaica was right, and Gibson, too. Time runs down. The past is written. Perfugium was very long ago, and the ink not five lines above these
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