Mount Apikuni And faded through the brightening air

A high, churlish wind kicked up across the mountain face, buffeting Saena and forcing her to seek shelter against the rock wall. She pressed her shoulder to it to steady herself and twisted her neck to stare out over the taiga below. Overnight, a thin blanket of snow had fallen over the world, and while the stone of the mountain absorbed enough heat from the sun during the day to melt it, the ground far below was still white even in the dark of dusk.

Here, out of sight of others, Saena allowed herself to break apart. Warbone's insistence that they were not ready to die rang in her ears, and his inspiration was usually loud enough, but bereft of her family and the last thing she really had to live for, Saena could once more see the allure of throwing herself off the ledge. Maybe then her daughters would not hate her, but would mourn her. Maybe then they would understand the depths of love she held for them, and know how they had utterly destroyed her when they chose the father who had done not even half of what she had for them. But it would do nobody any good to kill herself, she reflected, and so she had climbed instead, seeking once more the wilderness that could drown her aching heart out.

But before she could find it, she was pressed against the rock, feeling the residual warmth from the day like a comforting hug, and she let the weight of her failures come down on her shoulders. They buckled under it, and she dropped to her belly and buried her face in her forelegs. Saena didn't weep, perhaps because her hurt went so deep that it transcended tears or perhaps because boiling anger still burned within at the way she'd been shunned, but she did attempt to hide herself—to make herself as tiny as possible, as though to disappear for now, and forget everything once again.