Hadlén looked over the funeral pyre with a vacant stare. Stars twinkled above his head. He’d thought to himself before that the stars looked like they were the tears of the angels while a funeral pyre was burning, but that he was never struck with that same thought any other time. His mind was a little preoccupied at the moment to recall this though.

To his left an older gentleman with a long grey beard subtly cleared his throat with the specific intent of bringing Hadlén’s wandering mind back to reality. There was, after all, a ceremony to finish.

“Gelindaym git wiţ néumogeţ. Olujeģan slé dlovinyś git.” he said in a loud, but solemn voice as he raised his hands up towards the sky.

The other men standing in the circle around the fire bowed their heads. Each one of them was wearing a virtually identical white robe with only hints of difference between them.

Hadlén lowered his hands slowly and with palpable sadness. “Good job…” the older man next to him said as each of the robed men quietly left.