Harold Freyan and his boy dug a grave under his favorite tree – the same spot where we used to sit and he would tell us about all his travels – and helped lay him to rest. Almost all of the town and most of the staff from the college were there to say their goodbyes.
Afterwards, most of the people headed to The Frozen Hearth, the inn in town, where the owner, Dagur, was hosting a sort of a memorial of his own for my father. Ma and Stevie went but I bowed out. I was in no mood to watch the townsfolk get drunk and tell funny stories about my Pa.
Instead, I took a bottle of wine from my Pa's cupboard and walked into the frozen waste just west of town where I had my own little memorial service to my Pa. I sat on a rock high above the frozen sea and thought about all that had happened in the last few months. It felt as though the day Pa walked me to Windholm so I could take the ship to Solitude was just yesterday. Now, just three and a half months, Pa was dead, thanks to some mindless Imperial soldier.
I stayed out on the rock until my hands were so cold, I felt like they were going to drop off. Only then did I stand and speak to the whistling wind.
"I'll find who did this, Pa," I said, "I'll find who did this and kill them."
With those words spoken, I tossed the empty bottle into the sea, turned, and headed for home.
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