CHAPTER EIGHT
Dusk had finally arrived. Jovanna wanted nothing more than for the day to end. She stood a short distance from the hut that Jerik had made his home. Two guards were posted at the doorway of the mud and stone building, mainly to keep curious children away. None of the elves dared to enter the makeshift tomb. They considered it a bad omen to stand in the presence of the dead.
They did, however, walk by and pause momentarily in front of the doorway. One at a time, everyone in the village—or so it seemed—stopped in silence, paying tribute in their own way to the man. Jovanna was conflicted. Death came to everyone at some point. That was a fact she had come to acknowledge long ago. And she didn’t really care for the man. Yet Jerik’s death bothered her. It was like a parasite eat
