Sawtooth Spire But the bruises on your ego make you go wild, wild, wild

The hollow ting of sorrow's hammer striking Mahler's anvil heart sent a ripple through Wylla's slight frame. It coursed down her ribs and pooled in her belly, an icy bath to dunk the tatters of her pain in. She didn't know whether she'd prefer a comforting lie or the bald truth, but Mahler supplied her with the latter, and it brought her to her knees.

Her jaws wrenched open in a wretched sob and she let herself collapse against his chest, setting loose all her pain and loss in a cascade of emotion. Thade was gone, he was dead, she'd failed in her duty as a mother again—again and again and again, that was all she was capable of doing.

If not for Phaedra, for Mahler's embrace, she might've stepped off the cliff, for that was the only thing she felt she could ever succeed at, and certainly it would be better for them all. Tiercel had said as much, hadn't she? Her grown daughter hadn't wished her dead, but she could feel it in every word, every accusation, that Tiercel would've preferred that... and now she had failed Thade, too. Failed Mahler and Phaedra by letting him disappear. By letting him die. If all she could sow in this world was

this

pain

then wasn't it better if she did? Mahler might then feel the slight tug of her frame toward the cliffs as she contemplated her compulsion, but she remained anchored to him.