Larksong Grotto With apple blossom in her hair

She aimed to hurt him -- to take his soul in her hand and break it in two. With her words, Saena easily met her mark. The grand cardinal Hiram, forgiven one and atoned vessel of the daystar, felt something deep inside his being break. It was a feeling he had not felt since his fruitless attempt on his own life by the lake. It was a thing of helplessness... of fear. Hiram's religious fervor was stripped away, armor all but eaten by the acid of Saena's tirade. What stood before her now was simply a shell of a man. Reek Redtail; guilty, shaken, and scared.

He looked briefly to Jhala for strength... and then to his girls. Oh, how he loved them dearly -- even more than himself. "Saena please," he pleaded, knowing he could not defend his actions. "I've done nothing but love them with my entire heart," he answered her glaring accusation. 

He knew himself a selfish man -- his infidelity stemming from the need to be needed, to be wanted. A constant search for validation, manifest in physical contact. A mistake etched across his heart. The guilt, it followed him even still. Had that not been punishment enough? No, how could it be? He had broken her heart, their family, and everything that the man named Reek Redtail had once held dear. Had he known of her own infidelity, how Saena had been deflowered by the blue-nosed creek wolf when she had first disappeared, perhaps Hiram wouldn't have felt like such a monster. However, he would not be granted this respite. Forever, Hiram would bear his cross.

The cardinal took a long breath. "I've ruined everything, but I will not ruin this -- I'm a good father," he said, resolute. Everything he had done, it had been for his daughters. He had traveled half-way across the universe with nothing but a direction to find them, risking life and limb in the process. His children were his world -- to lose them would destroy him.