"We plant a tree for them, when we can," Merrill says, finding it easier to talk about tradition and things that she might have done rather than the truth of their deaths. "The ancient graves have stone markers, though."

Throwing a few seeds into the earth would have taken less time than the great stones, but if the mountain wouldn't take them, it would have been less effective. Besides, that was from the time when the elves were immortal.

"I came back, after. Tended to their bodies. Apologized. Sang to them. There are newer trees where the camp was, now." Ones that she had planted, ones that had taken hold in the lower elevation and flourished, fed by the dead. "Death is part of life for us, now. But..."

Not like that. Not the way it had happened.

"Well. Sometimes the dead in the ancient graves walk. I like to make sure they're not coming down this far, and that my clan isn't joining them."