Silvertip Mountain sun in the bloodied hand

gonna make a little timeline thingy bc it's fun, lmk if you mind :D

Ashlar had followed them quietly. He had not asked why they left because he knew that no true answers would be forthcoming, and he instead held onto the silent hope that perhaps this place would serve a feeling that the valley had not. Even in spite of everything, somehow, he could not lose that hope.

This place was beautiful and Ashlar had never lived upon a mountain. He'd been too tempted to climb its reaches and, timidly, he'd spent some time on the trails that wound the steeper and rockier slopes. The view was breathtaking and he imagined the types of songs he could sing here, where the air was clear and the whole world was laid out before him.

Then he found the body. A coyote speared on a jutting of rock and just left there. The twist of it had burned into his mind, made sharper by the freeze of shock and horrified terror. The heaving of his stomach brought him out of it and he bolted. The haphazard path sent him careening towards the sound of Roaring water and he slid to a gasping stop at the lip of a ledge, one that lay adjacent the massive waterfall.

The sight of the waterfall wasn't what caught him. Instead Ashlar's panicked stare was locked on to the figure of Merrick as his chest heaved. Was this his work? Why? The question was screaming in his mind and, for the first time, Ashlar considered that he might never know. Maybe he didn't want to.