Dragoncrest Cliffs the first casualty of war is innocence

tell me, vercingetorix, blodreina moves then so that she faces him, side to the cliffs, to the cold ocean spray that rises over the edge of the cliff carried by the strong wind roiling off of the angry waves below. how do you expect to protect someone that you don't even know? i knew heda when i was her cheka. i wouldn't go as far as to say i knew everything about her but she was my mentor. and she didn't die on my watch. and there it was. blodreina still felt majority of the blame belonged at the feet of wildfire and the children that abandoned their nomi — even if blodreina was wrong. maybe antumbra's death had nothing to do with her crumbling family. maybe it did. all blodreina could do was speculate.

she doesn't actually think that the blame lays at veringetorix's paws but he's irritating her and she's in a nasty mood. being hostile is like her comfort zone, her safety net. she feels protected in her aggression built like a towering fortress around her vulnerabilities because blodriena was vulnerable. she was grieving and she was angry and she was scared. she thought antumbra was unmovable — similar to how she regards gyda. a pillar of strength that would always be there. the truth was like a thousand knives in her back and chest. she feels guilty for saying it, lashing out at him with those words ...but in true eske blodreina fashion she does not apologize ( this is why she has no friends ).

yes. blodreina bites off forcibly. she knows, deep down, that telling wildfire and the children wouldn't take away her pain. she knows this, but it's all so irrational and she is deluded with grief into thinking that it would salve her own emotional wounds. she doesn't want truth. she's had enough of truth. she wants justice. i know it's not going to bring her back, blodreina snarls aggrieved, a sob ripping involuntarily from her throat. i know how death works. do you think the commander is the first i loved that i've lost? she snaps. there isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't miss kendra in some form or another. blodriena's first and last love.

and maybe i want wildfire to pay. maybe i want her to feel the pain i feel now. the pain she made antumbra feel. but the commander's children, at the very least, deserve to know their nomi is dead. it does not occur to blodreina that they may not care either way.