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up beyond altabury there was a legend, hulkenberg recalls, of the winter wind and the spirits of the departed: of how the hallowing gales of ice and magla billowing up from the plains were the battle cries of departed warriors and saints as they departed for the afterlife. twas a fantasy, but a comforting one nonetheless.
junah's wails are carried on the wind, the sound of snow and frost in the air shrill, as if attempting to duet with her, comfort her. eiselin waits for her.
rella's corpse is preserved like she is asleep, and eiselin wonders if this is how she will remain. she wonders if the ice will melt with the summer sun and the autumn leaves when the song carries them up and into the ruins of this place. but, she would not be surprised if it stays this way, the world itself afraid to disturb rella from her slumber, leaving her as perfect as the day she was lost.
junah refuses to leave rella's side even as her lips tinge blue and the frost begins to cover her hair. eiselin waits for her.
the sun is setting and the song is only getting louder, meeting junah's pitch beat for beat. as the sun disappears so does its sympathy, its verses biting and stinging eiselin even through her armor. it's become more of an argument; the land itself grieving rella, demanding them to leave it to its devices.
junah's cries and symphonies begin to wane. eiselin moves then, the snow having gathered around her shoes.
eiselin picks her up like her body weighs nothing, and she fights - junah kicks, punches, finds her voice again and screams, the hoarseness in her throat nothing to stop her demands to be left here with rella. they had slept in the same bed, woke in the same bed so many times as children; there's no reason why she cannot grant rella one more night as sisters, on that frostbitten, hallowed ground, where rella sleeps and her soul sings in the wind and the sins of the past linger unrepentant in the air around them.
rella would't have wanted to die here, she chokes out. magla twinkles in the night like snow, and junah collapses into a heap of sobs and screams until her voice gives out once more.
eiselin waits for her.
they stay together, angry and tired and cold, until eiselin picks up her frostbitten body. what little heat between them is shared in that moment, passed from the boiling blood in junah's aching heart to her skin and to the frigid leather of hulkenberg's suit.
as she cradles junah in her arms, the comfort it brings is small. but until they return to the runner, it is comfort nonetheless.