A/N: Anything you recognize is TPs. Anything you dont is mine.
Alanna, the Lioness of Tortall, King's Champion, Bazhir shaman, wept without shame. The cold flagstone beneath her knees made the scrapes and bruises on her legs throbbed in the back of her mind--she had forgotten to heal them herself. The pain barely registered, miniscule against the quiet disintegration of a part of her heart. Thom was dead. Dead. She didn't want to believe it, couldn't believe it, yet knew it. She looked inside herself and saw, tucked away and guarded, the rust colored Gift that flickered inside, a ball of fire separate from the purple she recognized as her own. Thom's gift. And Roger's, his magic, corrupting Thom's, KILLING Thom. A part of her wanted to rid herself of that magic, rid herself of Roger, but she couldn't bring herself to do so. Thom, her twin, who she knew so well and who knew her so well in return, was dead--and that was all that was left of him.
It had been four days since the bloody Coronation Battle. Four days of grieving, first in disbelief, then in anger, now in pure sadness. Jon had been unable to console her, George unable to make her even smile. Thayet hadn't even tried. She knew what it was like to lose someone you loved and be absolutely unable to prevent it. Alanna had slept through the first day, physically and mentally exhausted, and been in the healer's wing for the next two, burying herself in blood and bandages until Duke Baird had threatened a Court order banning her from the wing until she got some rest. Unable even to find peace in Moonlight Alanna had found herself here, with the bodies waiting to be entombed in the catacombs. Liam. Thom. Roger. Dozens of soldiers and footmen whose names she never knew, but whose bravery had saved hundreds of others. The rebels had been piled outside. Some of the nobles' bodies had been ransomed by their families. Si'cham's sent back to the City of the Gods for a burial in their temple. Closing her eyes, Alanna felt a comforting weight on her shoulder and reached her hand up absently to brush thin air. Faithful. He had gone, too. Back to the Goddess. Alanna was alone, more alone than she had ever felt before.