Chapter 196: Chapter 196: Mourning Rites The moonlight over Veynar was not the pale, distant glow Sol remembered from Earth. Here, the Great Heartwood’s canopy acted as a secondary sky, filtering the celestial light through silver leaves and iridescent moss until the entire world was bathed in a haunting, underwater emerald. But tonight, that beauty was destined to be stained. Sol sat on the edge of the soft, mossy bed in the Feline Spire, his hands buried in his hair, listening to the silence of the room. It was a silence that felt heavy, almost suffocating, pressing against his eardrums until he could hear the frantic rhythm of his own pulse. The weight of the vision he had just experienced... the staggering history of Orphos, the bitter irony of Isylia’s imprisonment, and the cold reality of his own months-long exile... clung to him like a damp shroud. "Months," he whispered again. The word felt like a sentence. On Earth, a few months was a summer break or a project deadline. Here, in a world where nine-foot grey giants bit heads off and lanky monsters injected necrotizing venom with their fingernails, months felt like an eternity. He thought of Lyra’s warmth, the way Evara looked at him with that fierce, possessive hunger, and the simple, domestic laughter of the girls over a pot of soup. To them, he had simply vanished into a hole in the ground. They would be searching. They would be grieving. He stood up, the movement abrupt as he tried to shake off the encroaching despair. He couldn’t afford to be a "Lost One" in spirit as well as name. He stood up and looked at the white tunic he was wearing. It was still pristine, still glowing with that faint, ethereal light that screamed Divine. It was a beacon that screamed Outsider to everyone in Veynar. He looked around the room and found a set of clothes laid out on a low petrified-wood table. They were clearly meant for him, a silent offering from Kira or the Warchief’s attendants. He stripped off the starlight fabric, feeling a strange chill as the material left his skin, and pulled on the local attire. It was a rugged yet fine assembly: breeches made of dark, supple leather from some forest beast, and a vest of woven silver-bark fiber that felt as tough as Kevlar but as light as linen. There were armguards of polished chitin and a simple dark cloak. He looked less like a divine mortal and more like a high-tier scout. The crimson in his eyes seemed sharper against the dark earth tones of the Veynar clothing. Suddenly a low, rhythmic thumping began to vibrate through the floor... the soles of his feet catching the vibration before his ears heard the sound. It wasn’t the steady heartbeat of the Great Tree he had felt earlier. The distant chanting had grown louder, joined by the slow, rhythmic thud-thud-thud of a drum. This was different. It was the deliberate, mournful beat of a drum. Sol pushed open the door and stepped onto the suspension bridge. The sun had long since dipped below the horizon, leaving the world in a deep, violet twilight, but Veynar was not dark. The city was ablaze...not the destructive orange of a raid, but the somber, flickering amber of torches. Thousands of orange torches and braziers had been lit across the suspension bridges and spiral walkways, their flickering light competing with the steady emerald glow of the bioluminescent moss. The drums were coming from below... from the central square at the base of the Great Heartwood. Sol left the guest house, navigating the bridges with a newfound caution. He followed the sound, descending the spiraling paths that clung to the gargantuan trunk. As he reached the lower levels, the smell hit him... a cloying mixture of woodsmoke, sweet resin, and the unmistakable, metallic tang of cold blood. As he moved, he passed other tribe members. They were all moving in the same direction, their faces carved with a numbness that spoke of a grief too frequent to be fresh, yet too heavy to be ignored. They didn’t look at him. In the orange glow of the funeral fires, everyone was just a shadow. When he reached the square, he stopped, his breath stuck in his throat. The central square was a vast circle of flattened obsidian-wood, dominated by the massive, gnarled roots of the Great Heartwood. In the center of the space, a dozen bundles lay on the ground. They were wrapped in ceremonial cloth, but the purity of the fabric was ruined by dark stains. Some bundles were long, the shape of a man clearly visible beneath the fabric. Others were tragically small, or jagged... remnants of warriors who had been torn apart by the "double jaws" of the Marauders, containing only what could be recovered from the meat grinder at the ridge. The air was thick with the scent of spirit-ash... a pungent, sweet-smelling incense that burned in large stone bowls around the perimeter. The rhythmic drumming continued, a slow, heart-stopping cadence that seemed to demand the attention of the forest itself. Sol scanned the crowd and found Kira standing near the front, close to the roots of the Great Tree. She looked different. Her warrior’s armor was gone, replaced by a simple white wrap that left her scarred arms bare. She looked smaller, more fragile, her stormy eyes reflecting the dancing flames of the pyres. He moved toward her, his footsteps silent on the moss. He didn’t say anything as he came to a stop beside her. Sol moved through the crowd. No one stopped him. The Veynar were in a trance of collective sorrow, a numb, rhythmic grief that transcended tribal politics. He reached Kira’s side and stood in silence for a moment, watching the smoke rise toward the stars. Kira didn’t look up, but she knew he was there. Her hand, scarred and calloused, was trembling. "We are doing the mourning rites," she whispered, her voice so thin it was almost lost to the wind. "To honor the fallen. To ensure the Great Orrath remembers their names."