"I would not wish it upon another," Sabriel says, with a smile. "I've never thought of it as a burden, but the knowledge of it all... that is enough." She wonders how her father lasted, alone without his Warden brothers and shoulder to shoulder with merchants. Did he ever tell any of them? Was that why he turned his back entirely on the Mortalitasi? Did he shield her from the worst of it, feeling his daughter had enough of a burden to know she would one day be a Warden?

All questions she will never know the answer to, and perhaps that is best.

She sighs. "A door opened is not so easy to close." Korrin is right, of course - the Breach has ruined the stability of the Veil, and the nature of death and spirits enough already. Especially spirits and demons, tumbling through where they should not, and bringing those from other worlds along with them. "Everything has rippled out, past the Breach. I wonder if places like the mire will ever return to how they used to be."

Maybe. Maybe, a long time in the future. But anything that ravages a land leaves a mark. You need only look to a Blight for that.