"His namesake died before you came here," she says, letting the animal lay his head in her lap, sliding her fingers behind his ears, resting against his neck. It isn't a dispute of the strength of the name - she misses Asher suddenly and fiercely, and not only because he wouldn't have suffered anyone to speak to her any way she didn't like.

"Asher Hardie. The Boneflayers were his, before, if you've met Yngvi."

(Gwenaëlle is very good at finding ways to not be talking about herself any more.)

"It was a wound that never healed correctly," with a slightly dreamy quality, just enough to be slightly uncomfortable. "He lived with it a while, I think, and then he couldn't any more. I think it must be particularly difficult for warriors to die that way. In a bed, slowly."