Chapter 25: Answers Delayed Now Given
People died in different ways. Some, like the elders I remembered in my village, faded from life like cloth left out in the sun. They shriveled, graceful or grotesque, depending on your point of view.
Others died violently. I had seen the king's body, the grey surprise still etched on his stiff and bulbous face. That sort of death scared me, but not because of its violence. Life was violent, death had a sort of peace to it--no, I was afraid of the shock, the realization that one was about to die.
The elders weren't shocked by their death, it came to them so slowly that it might have always been there. The king had been terrified, in his final moments, and his fear was immortalized in the stiff cold of his dead face.
Matthias wasn't startled by his death. Nor did he see it coming slowly. He had no time to process it, not even a moment to understand the implication of his sister's words. Order became action, action ceased.
One moment Matthias was, the next he wasn't.