The Companions are converging on Companions' Field now. Those of them still alive. Usually, when a Herald dies a natural death - or an unnatural death with some warning - their Companion has a little time for farewells. 

Some of the Companions are faring better than others, here. Herald-Mage Kilchas' Companion, Rohan, crumples to the gravel path in a white heap. Sandra's Shonsea makes it as far as the field, limping, lost in a haze of pain, and only then starts to fade. 

:- Was it Leareth?: she tries to ask. 

Even Rolan has no answer. 

Herald Joshel wakes in pain and confusion as his Kimbry, just seconds from reaching the others in the field, stops in confusion and then crumbles into nothing. 

He can't - it hurts - what's happening - he has to - 

A voice rings in his mind, cold steel and blue fire. 

:Hold on. You are not allowed to die. Valdemar needs you: 

Alone in the abandoned stables, a white form sprawls motionless in her stall -

- eventually, Yfandes' flanks heave, as she remembers how to breathe. 

Her centre is gone. She is...lost, falling, alone, she can't/shouldn't/mustn't be, anymore, but she - is... 

One more breath. 

On the edge of her awareness, there's something like a door. Metaphorically speaking. It's so close and it would be so easy to slip through and then she wouldn't be alone, anymore, and the pain would stop. 

One more breath, first. 

It's unendurable, and yet, here she is. 

Another breath. 

She doesn't know why. 'Why' isn't a concept that makes sense, anymore, it feels incoherent that anything will ever again happen for a reason, the foundations of the world are too deeply cracked for that - 

But she's still here. 

It's impossible to sleep through the Death Bell continuously ringing, and Lord Withen Ashkevron wakes with a jolt, disoriented, heart racing with the sudden rush of adrenaline. 

About three seconds later he's in the hallway in his nightshirt and bare feet, yelling, there has to be SOMEONE who knows what's going on - 

His wife is slower on the mark, and by the time she totters out to join him, yawning, the corridor is full of servants and other nobles emerging from their adjacent Palace suites. 

"Withen, dear, what's happening?" 

"...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: