Kigal listened to the shades as they came to her. As they recounted their stories and plights and unresolved mortal pains, she recognized a spare few of them, having buried them herself, yet there were far more she didn’t recognize, either because of the advanced stage of rot she’d found them in or because they had been buried by someone else. It seemed it was only those who’d been given rites and a proper burial who ended up here. As for those who weren’t so lucky… She remembered the spirit of the old man pacing Irkalla’s boundary. There were likely many more. So, so many more, left wandering or lost altogether. Yet despite the whirlwind surrounding her, it warmed her to know others out there tended the dead too. Maybe in different corners of the earth, in different times and lives, but s
