Now he lay buried under a monumental cairn of broken slate, the enormous flat slabs of irregularly-shaped rock heaped up over his mortal remains as by the hand of the Invisible God himself, never to know with what grief that she, who had once been his shining example, his supreme inspiration and witness before the Invisible God, or with what intense longing and remorse that she, the one whom he had adored from a distance, would eventually suffer as a result of his decision to follow her in her beliefs.
Never had he attempted to speak to Si'Wren, to impose himself upon her. He had evidently not so much as dreamed of taking it upon himself to actually approach her, she -Si'Wren- the silent, literate female scribe for whom he had no doubt secretly harbored such tender-hearted sentiments of closely shared spiritual beliefs that he must have felt at times as if his own soul were being rent asunder as he trespassed unsuspected upon such starkly forbidden spiritual territory.
She could only guess how he must have felt, seeing how he dared not presume himself upon her, lest any -including herself, for all he knew- should object with a most self-righteous, vainglorious, and presumptuous offendedness such as nearly all of humanity was so fond of imitating and out-doing one-another in feigning. Would that he had intruded, that she might have shown him otherwise!
Perhaps, he might even had ventured to court her as well, to which she would not have objected, but rejoiced. But he -a common foot soldier- had not so much as dared.
Certain others might have objected, if only out of spite, but not she. Moreover, could she not write? Was she not in a position to petition the very Emperor himself, personally, on any affair she deemed fit? Surely Emperor Euphrates would have given her to him, and kept both in his service lest he lose Si'Wren's valuable services as Royal Scribe.
Now, it was too late to tell this slain foot soldier how miserably she felt. Perhaps he, like Habrunt, could have redeemed her vow. Perhaps not. He undoubtedly could not read, and seeing she was sworn never to speak, their love would have been something to marvel at, even to themselves, all their days together.
How awful it now seemed, that now, he would never know that she should come so soon to mourn and lament him, with his body not yet even cold! That she should so soon bury him with her own fingers, and here remain weeping uncontrollably, her face buried in her hands, kneeling over his grave like the beloved wife of many years that she should have been.
Nay, more than a wife, a spiritual sister also.
Reflecting upon such an unfamiliar notion of spiritual kinship, Si'Wren, an orphan from her earliest recollection, bent down low again suddenly, before she could collapse from grief, and wept even more bitterly at her fate.
This man, whom she had never been privileged to meet face-to-face in life, lay now at the center of all her attentions, hopelessly beyond her reach. How she longed that she might but one single time, have revealed to him what his unintentional self-sacrifice meant to her. And now, with what grief she must regard his brave act and cruel fate, all merely for imitating her beliefs!