Chapter 27

Mia

“They can’t all be dead.” Everything in me insisted it was impossible. My friends, my family…my pack. Gone, all gone.

Liam made yet another circuit of the village, disappearing into each small home as he searched for any living person. Anyone who might be too sick to respond to our calls.

We’d already checked, of course. Here and in the outlying homes. Some were empty, their inhabitants now residents of the new mounds in the cemetery. Headstones were not our tradition, nor any marking of who lay in each mound. We sought to return to the earth without marking her more than necessary. The names of those who died were added to the memories of the bards of each generation, to be recited every Samhain at the bonfire.

They were not trained, these bards, or rather not taught the tales they imparted. Most did have some lessons in elocution, in singing, and of course in playing instruments. But the actual information, the lists of names of those gone before, the heroic tales, the tragedie