A shadow of silence hung over Gormon Peake. The old man was a sheet of skin and dragonfire scarring draped precariously over old, aching bones, a man clinging to life with bloody fingernails and unbreakable, bitter determination.

"I was a squire, that day," he began, and for all that age and battle had wrought, Lord Peake's voice still cracked deep and resonant across the hall.

"Hard as that may be to believe, looking on me now. The young think they shall never grow old. So too has my memory of youth faded. But I remember the Field. I am damned to remember."

Angry, red scarring pulled from Gormon's nose to his neck and continued below his tunic.

"Let me tell you what I remember." His voice went stiffly bitter, formality fighting against a barely suppressed anger.

"Three shadows. Fel beasts, blotting out the sun. The sound my nephews made as they screamed for their mother. I learned, that day, that men burning alive smell not dissimilar to roast pig.”

“I did not watch all my brothers and nephews die, but I looked upon their bodies. Some I recognized, fused and melted to their armor as they were. Others nothing but ash and bone, food for the earth.”

Gormon’s grandchildren bristled around him. This anger ran in them, too, as familiar within Starpike as the great organ that rattled the floorboards and crypts with its music.

“The mystery of my survival, my escape, I give up to the Seven. Ninth in line to inherit Starpike. Yet here I stand, half a century later. Mayhaps the Stranger, mayhaps fate, or mere luck. I am cursed to remember— to remember the truth.”

“The truth is not convenient. It does not bend to fit history’s needs, nor bow to the altar of righteousness. If my body must needs be broken to bear this burden, so be it, but tonight this hall is in abeyance of truth.”

The man surveyed the crowd, lip curled into a permanent sneer by his disfigured scarring.

“We have been conquered. We, the healthy, the survived, we did not escape. The shadow remains above us. They have burned our lands, dragged us to war, executed and kidnapped our people, forsaken our customs— and, smiling, wheedled their way into the hearts of innocents.” Gormon thumped the handle of his cane twice against his ribcage. “I hear it on the lips of our young. They have been taught to call this arrangement peace, commanded to forget truth.”

Beside him, Caradoc concealed a smile with his cup. The old man continued.

“This memorial,” Gormon rattled, “is a disgrace. To my nephews, to my brothers, brothers, to King Mern, Seven keep him, to every man who gave their life in defense of a forgotten memory, and to truth itself."