CHAPTER 97KADEThe burial took place at dawn in the royal cemetery on the eastern grounds. The sky was still pale gray, the full moon long gone, leaving only a faint silver line on the horizon. Everyone wore black. The nobles, the families of the dead, the guards, the kings. Black cloaks, black suits, black veils. The air was cold and still, carrying the scent of fresh earth and incense from the priest’s censer.I stood at the front with Dante and Lucien, our positions fixed by tradition. Rowan stood close to me, slightly behind my left shoulder, quiet and pale in a simple black coat that swallowed his smaller frame. He had insisted on coming even though he still looked shaky from the night before. I had not argued. I wanted him where I could see him.The priest, an old man with a deep, resonant voice, stood before the sixty fresh graves arranged in neat rows. His black robes fluttered slightly in the morning breeze as he raised his hands and began the rite.“Today we commit these so
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