Sawtooth Spire Wanna believe, wanna believe that you don't have a bad bone in your body

Maybe you should stop giving me reasons to, then, spat Wylla in response, as reflexively as her slighted colleague delivered his gripe. But she didn't think to feel any remorse for the outburst. On the contrary, she wanted to say a lot more: it would've been easy to pour all of her anguish and torment onto the flames of anger and turn upon him.

Miraculously, she held her tongue instead, though her eyes bored into his with an accusing intensity. Why shouldn't he hate himself? He'd inflicted pain on the ones he claimed to love, left her alone to look after three cubs—one a heartbroken little girl, one an obstinate little orphan, and one a quiet and strong boy who hadn't got the attention he needed—so why shouldn't he suffer the guilt of that? Wylla believed it was wholly deserved, and said nothing to absolve him of it.

Well, you weren't, she coldly retorted. What he should've done didn't matter, only what he'd failed to do. He could regret his choices all he wanted, but unless something changed, regret was meaningless to Wylla. She was too severe a wolf to sympathize with should've and could've. She held everyone, including herself, to impossibly high standards.

Which was why she also blamed herself, even if it was unreasonable to expect one wolf to watch over three cubs practically by herself. The most help she had came from Stag, which was probably the only reason Phaedra hadn't come completely undone at the seams by now.

She's afraid of the water. You should know that. I am not going to force Phaedra to spend time with the father who broke her heart, Wylla said coolly, looking away from Mahler lest the ichor of her many wounds take wing from her tongue. You can ask her yourself, and pray that she still has time for her papa. But our son is missing. Shouldn't that be your priority? Because Phaedra was already hurt enough, and Wylla did not want her to receive her papa back for a single day only to lose him again for an untold amount of time while he fawned over other children, or searched for his missing son. She feared deeply that it would drive Phaedra away from home as well, and Wylla couldn't take another loss.

Why aren't we enough for you? she seethed abruptly, throwing back her ears and stubbornly fighting back the wetness of grief from her eyelids. What does she have that I don't? What do her children have that ours don't, that you would spend so much time away from us, with them, that our son— She couldn't finish the thought. It was choked off by a mournful sob that wracked her thin shoulders.