Blacktail Deer Plateau From Under the Floorboards

Somewhere in the back of Raleska's mind, she hoped whatever Svalinn spoke of next would be pain and betrayal free.

Yet as she listened, she knew it would not be so.

First a sense of horror flooded her, and then needling its way through that shock was a sense of outrage. How could he? How could he have convinced her to go on that errand, only to fail his task and then come back?

The hope that had only just sprung alive in her chest died there -- withering behind the glassy yellow of her eyes.

Only seconds before she had been overjoyed to see him, drawing from his presence the implication maybe somewhere their mother was alive -- and now, mere ticks of time later, she was shattered like a bough struck by irrevocable thunder.

Her gaze hardened. The line in her jaw grew taut.

"You.... left her..?" Maybe it was all she had heard or could think about. Her tone was deathly cold -- quiet -- yet filled with a burning rage. There was a pause in that quiet question too, a begging note that pleaded he tell her all he had said was just a lie, a mistake, he was wrong and that none of it had happened --

Oh, but the truth had a way of cutting cold and to the marrow, and stealing from all that lived it any sense of joy.

That happiness was ash in her mouth as she learned Caiaphas was dead. "Mom is... dead?" Again came that pleading tone, scarce but a whimper -- for the truth seemed too ugly and cruel to bear.