"...What is it?" 

There isn't going to be any way to say this without getting hysterics-at, is there. 

...It's incredibly hard to speak, for some inexplicable reason. 

"Vanyel." 

Withen swallows. 

"Dead." 

"What?" 

"He's - not - the only one - no one know what - people just, just vanishing - into dust..." 

Treesa lets out a quiet whimper, but doesn't immediately start shrieking or bawling, which is doing better than a few of the other noble ladies down the hall. 

"- Lissa," she gulps out, finally. 

"Oh." 

And he takes her arm, and they break into a run. Or the closes to a run that Treesa can manage in her floor-length nightdress, at least. 

It's not going to make a lot of difference either way. General Lissa Ashkevron was gone before her mother even rose from her bed. 

In the Healers' quarters, they're already checking rooms. 

Melody tries to Mindspeak Terrill, and fails, and fifteen seconds of effort confirms that she can't find his mind at all. 

Another name to check off the list. 

There's going to be a reckoning, later, a time for tears and anger and pointless denial of the situation. But not yet. There's an emergency to be dealt with, and Melody pushes all emotion aside for later. 

When this doesn't work, she puts a heavy redirect on herself, and then keeps going. 

Gemma follows Shavri to the House of Healing. 

She isn't sure what following Shavri is supposed to accomplish. She's not sure what anything is supposed to accomplish, here; she had a job, it was to keep the King alive and pain-free for another night, and she failed. 

Shavri reaches the House of Healing. 

She starts checking rooms. There are some Healers missing. Also some patients missing. These don't seem especially correlated with each other. 

In a flat empty mindvoice, she alerts everyone nearby which patients are still alive and currently being neglected, and once she reaches the end of the hall, she picks a room and sits down in it and opens her Healing-Sight and starts pushing her Gift at the old man with laboured breathing asleep on his cot.

In the distance she's aware, vaguely, that there are arguments in favour of this not, exactly, being the highest priority for Valdemar right now. Shavri doesn't care. 

Hundreds of miles away, a man wakes up screaming. 

Starwind was there, seconds ago. 

He's not there anymore. 

From the ground-floor of the ekele below: 

:Dada? What - where is Papa - why...?:

Starwind was the Speaker for the Vale. 

:We need - elders, to gather - help -: 

:I will wake Featherfire: 

Moondance is already aware that she, too, might be gone. He's a Healing-Adept, and he felt the weight of deaths around him. Thought not the how, or who or where - the gulf where Starwind used to be is too vast for that. 

But Brightstar's twin sister is still there in her hammock, the moonlight falling across her face. 

:Featherfire. Wake up: 

She jolts awake, and reaches as her brother opens his mind to her, and she sees it - 

:- Mother: 

They can't find her mind. 

When they reach Snowstar's ekele, there's nothing and no one there. 

Moondance, Healing-Adept of k'Treva and formerly lifebonded to Starwind, Speaker for the Vale, gathers his people. What's left of them. 

They do a headcount. They're missing almost exactly half. 

(Everything hurts. It doesn't matter, not yet, and he's not intending to have to bear it for long.) 

:Who would take responsibility for k'Treva: he asks the huddled group, because for SOME REASON he seems to be the only one capable of thinking that far ahead, despite the yawning sucking screaming void where his lifebonded used to be. 

Silence. 

:Brightstar?: 

His son takes a deep breath. 

:No. I am going to Valdemar, for my father: