"Give me back the first breath you took."
Kali stopped. A man stood a few paces ahead of her, holding out his hand as though he expected her to place something in it.
"I used that up quite some time ago."
"Nevertheless, it was mine."
She recognized him. The sculptor had made him broader in the shoulders, and in the vision of the battlefield he had been so terrible a figure that she had scarcely noticed his face.
Here, he looked much as he must have on the day his people came to take the last of his strength. He was thin, almost frail. There was a dark bruise around one wrist.
Kali glanced back. The chamber containing his inheritance had disappeared. White stretched in every direction, with no horizon to distinguish earth from sky.
She could feel something firm beneath her feet, but when she shifted her weight, the sound of her step went on and on, growing fainter across a distance that made her uneasy.
"You must be what remains of him."
"Enough remains for this."
