Kre mutely followed Kitalia’s next instructions, which were to pull the coffin off of the cart and set it in the clearing atop a small pyre. He had gathered a second armful of smaller branches and twigs when the realization of what he was doing hit him.
“I can’t burn his body,” he said aloud to himself.
“You do not have to,” came a soft-voiced reply from behind him. “You could just leave his body here for the Rangers to take back. Who knows what they plan to do with the body though. They could string it up in the market square for all we know.”
She saw that Kre was still conflicted about the decision, so she closed the gap between them and lightly touched his shoulder. There was something comforting to Kre about her touch, despite the fact that she had drugged his companions and was compelling him to depart from his sworn oath to report for trial.
“Kre,” she said softly but firmly, “I am not the one that wants this to happen. You are.”
Standing upright, Kre was a full head taller than the Ylveryan girl. Still, despite his height, he felt smaller and less sure of his words than she seemed to be of hers. “I don’t want this to happen,” he said meekly. “I can’t do this to my friend.”
Kitalia cocked her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. “I do not understand you. You say you are his friend, but you would leave his body here so that those men can disrespect his memory with their secret warrants and proceedings?
“If you were truly his friend,” she continued before he could protest again, “you would keep his memory safe from these predators and take his story to the Citadel as you promised.”
“The Citadel?” Kre asked.
Kitalia shrugged. “Is that not where we are going? You have a need to go there, yes? I have never been. Sounds like as good a place as any to visit.”
“But, I’m a fugitive now. I can’t just walk into the Citadel and plead my case, expecting that they’ll look past my escape now.”
“Did you not swear to travel with all haste?”
“Well, yes, but not at the expense of breaking any laws.”
“What laws have you broken?”
“I… uh…” Kre stopped and thought about it for a moment but could not think of any law that he had actually violated in the last thirty minutes or so since this whole crazy mess started. “None, I suppose,” he finally admitted.
“Then you have no reason not to continue your mission to the Citadel,” she said with a smile that seemed to end the conversation.
It didn’t dawn on Kre until a few minutes more that the girl seemed to know far more about Tehynshin law than he did. She also seemed familiar with the covenants of justice, not just as a principle, but also the ones specific to his case. While he pondered this though, he continued working alongside her, stacking up some of the logs from the stores intended for the cooking fire until they had a small, makeshift pyre ready to go. With a few heaves and much straining on their part, they had the coffin resting atop the wood.