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Lifeless.
It seemed so wrong to call her that, but that is what she was. A corpse.
Bethany, who was as spring in bloom, had been taken in hand and crushed until the life left her body and Lyra, powerful though she was, was helpless to stop it.
They had precious little time – the darkspawn were gaining and the land was blighted under their feet – but Lyra couldn’t let her little sister go, not yet.
She latched her arms under Beth’s shoulders and dragged her away from the gore of the battle, laying her down gently in the dry brush.
Carver was the one to cross her arms over her chest and stomach, trying his best to cover the wounds where bones jutted out in a show of horror. Gently, he untied her scarf and looped it around his pommel.
Lyra leaned down, kissed her face, and reached for the sigil of Andraste hanging around her sister’s neck. She tugged lightly, snapping the chain in a quick jerk, and held it tightly while she summoned a warmth inside her.
It started it in her belly, worked its way up her throat and into her hands – a dangerous heat that welled up like an eruption.
The brush caught first, then the edges of Bethany’s frock, and with a single gesture, the flame grew into a conflagration.
The darkspawn would not take their sister’s body; they would not drag her down into the depths and mutilate her like Lyra heard in the tales.
“Whatsoever passes through the fire is not lost, but made eternal,” Carver murmured, jaw set tight.
“As air can never be broken nor crushed, the tempered soul is everlasting,” Lyra finished.
The smell of burning caught the breeze, unpleasant and nauseating, and Leandra looked away then, unable to watch her youngest be committed to the pyre.
Lyra and Carver watched on, however, as if Bethany’s memory would disappear the moment they looked away.