He was not proud of their retreat. They had been underprepared, unprepared to face a winged foe, and his strength was nothing against an enemy he couldn't reach. He had thought that they might yet reclaim victory from the jaws of defeat, but how? They would need upgrades to trade if they couldn't fight, but oh, he wanted to fight. To wound and tear the beast that had mocked them, but he couldn't do it alone, and Kiada was in no shape to go back out again so soon.
It would have been so easy to retreat to the room with the dead, to brood and turn inwards on himself again, to savage his heart for the choices he had made that led to Rory being alone and Kiada returning empty-handed. In the end he had let both of them down, and he was unlikely to forget that anytime soon. But he was not the only one who was hurting in the Guildhall. There were others far worse off than he, and if they could bear up so gracefully beneath their injuries, who was he to hide away?
"Rexanna ?" he called softly, knocking on the frame of the door to the room he was told she'd been given to rest in. "How are you doing?"
It would have been so easy to retreat to the room with the dead, to brood and turn inwards on himself again, to savage his heart for the choices he had made that led to Rory being alone and Kiada returning empty-handed. In the end he had let both of them down, and he was unlikely to forget that anytime soon. But he was not the only one who was hurting in the Guildhall. There were others far worse off than he, and if they could bear up so gracefully beneath their injuries, who was he to hide away?
"