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Tasa breathed deeply and looked at her companions. What had passed and how had she missed its happening? She felt Endamir's plight deeply now; he had killed his brother. She had killed her troops. He had done it without knowledge, she had lost innocent lives without forethought. They were different, but they were the same; Tasa and Endamir shared guilt. She let her tears flow, and they fell silently down her white cheeks, cold against the heat of her silver scars.
"It is time, my friends, to leave here." Her voice was soft, silver bells on the wind, chimes in the early morning. "We have travelled together to this place that holds so many memories, and we have faced many of them. I know that I have." Tasa looked at the floor between companions, sometimes looking up to almost meet their eyes. "The shadows of our deeds will haunt us forever, but never so much as they will in this place."
She left them for a moment, finding herself strong and able, feeling a heat in her veins that had long since lain dormant. She stood tall and proud, and walked with a confidence she had not felt since the Nirnaeth. She could not help but wonder at the sleep of last night.
Tasa walked a path that she did not remember, but that her body knew for her. The entrance, she knew, was this way, and so would be their exit. It was not. She tried every door she found, uncertain now. The final door, she knew in her heart, was the correct one. It would not move. She shivered, feeling crows in her hair, probing coldness in her mind. Silently she returned to the group and met each pair of eyes with sadness.
"Malris... our way is shut. Again."
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