The Sentinels When you come and break my heart, free my blood.

Dag felt as though the earth had been swept out from under him at Lotte's admission. "Laerke? Hän on poissa?" he asked, though he needed no answer. His sister had spoken clearly enough, and 'twas true - the scent of the Bear had gone from the forest, just as he'd been worried Lotte's would be. Though fear and saddness warred in his heart, he was also very grateful that it had not been his twin to disappear. "Did he say goodbye?" he asked softly, wondering what could've happened to his stalwart older brother. He'd been so protective of them, but now he left them in a foreign land? Surely, something must be wrong!

But he could not say this to Lotte; he would not speak the worries she surely had in her own heart. It would only give them wings.

"I... loved a woman," he said in response to Lotte's next question. The words were meant to speak of the affection he'd had for Amber, but - he realized, belatedly - sounded a lot like an admission to something else. Something that he'd planned to admit to, anyway, but maybe not as the start of a conversation. "A lot has happened," he admitted, a look passing between them that expressed that not all of it had been good.