What Remains of Honor

Names Buried Under Snow

Mass graves from earlier battles are uncovered outside a destroyed village, and workers pull bodies from the snowy ground while survivors watch in silence. People from the area accuse both the empire and the rebellion of leaving them behind during the fighting, and arguments increase as families search for missing relatives. Maximilien moves through the ruins and studies the records left by fleeing officials, then begins tracking the men who betrayed his loyalists years earlier. He walks across the valley and stops several times to catch his breath, and a villager notices blood in his cough and tells him to see a doctor, Maximilien soon does and is diagnosed with a fungous tumor of the lung.