Dragoncrest Cliffs But I won't pray, I've made my grave and I'll sleep in it

Never said you deserved to die, Ephraim muttered, eyeing Rosalyn now like she was some complete nutter. Did he really think that was what he thought? Well, it was. He thought it, privately, in his own head; thought that killing her might have saved them some trouble, or given Rusalka a stronger message to leave them alone. But what he thought privately to himself, and what his principles really were, were rather different beasts. Ephraim could think all he wanted that killing someone was the best course of action, but the reality was that he was soft-hearted and could never actually go through with it or advocate it out loud.

And maybe part of him just didn't like the idea that he deserved the same as her, because he was nothing like Rosalyn. He cared. He cared about Drageda despite being imprisoned, and he cared about the idea of family despite wanting to see them gone. He couldn't care about them strictly, because he didn't remember them.

Who is she? Why does she hate us so much? Ephraim was playing with fire now. Vercingetorix hadn't been very specific about who from Rusalka attacked him, just that someone did. He was better off not knowing, but he was probably going to find out sooner or later. He knew the black-faced one was his mother because Antumbra had told him so, not because he remembered her at all. He still couldn't conjure any memory of his family or what they were like; the storm blocked all that. And what little Antumbra had shared about her was biased and tilted in Drageda's favour. He knew only that she wanted nothing to do with him (why?) and that she wanted to destroy Drageda (why?) and that was all. So he couldn't understand her motives any better than he could remember her as his dam.