Sonder sat alone in the guest room.
Her gaze had locked on the far wall some time ago, and it had stayed there while her thoughts wandered far away.
She hadn't known the elven queen—not even by title—nor had she even known what the queen looked like. There were no portraits of her that she had seen, or statues, like some other kings and queens had.
Sonder wrapped her arms around her knees where she sat curled in the deep armchair by the fireplace. The fire wasn't lit. There didn't seem to be a reason. She wasn't cold, nor was the room especially cold, not really.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember. Had she ever been to a funeral before?
The question had come to her once already that day, and no matter how long she tried to remember, she wasn't any closer to an answer.
She remembered funerals. She remembered a graveyard, a small one, behind the village chapel.
She and her brother used to pass it often. It was just there. Nothing more.
There was one memory that tugged at her. One funeral, she thought.
But it was so vague. The details were thin and misty.
People standing around a hole in the earth. The smell of soil. She was very young and didn't understand at the time.
She remembered someone crying softly. Nothing else.
Was it her grandmother?
That seemed right. But maybe it wasn't.
There had been no ceremony, not really. Nothing like this.
Her parents, what she remembered of them, hadn't been very spiritual. They hadn't believed in rites. Death was just something that happened. You buried the dead ones. Then you went home.
That was it.
No one had worn black. Or white. No speeches. No honored guests. Just another death in a village.
The old woman they buried was just another person.
And now here she was.
In a palace filled with immortals, surrounded by kings, politicians, warriors, mages, and envoys from corners of the world she'd never even heard of before.
All of them had come for one thing: to pay their respects to a queen who, by all rights, should have lived forever.
What do you even say at a funeral like this?
She wondered. At a funeral for someone who wasn't supposed to die.
She hadn't thought of it until now.
The queen was the exact opposite of Sonder.
She was gone, and yet, Sonder was still here.