Jade Fern Grove klagelied

A fragment of herself, sharp-edged and piercing, flashed in her delirious gaze. She couldn't understand. What reason for Mahler to search for her, as she fervently believed, still in the dark entirely about Sagtannet's relocation, if only to reject her when he found her? She wondered despairingly if this was the sum of her worth, that someone she loved in spite of the roaring chasm that pain fashioned between them would seek her only to amplify the hurt.

Not because he cared.

His words didn't make sense to her. She could not glean his meaning, his reticence, the taut way he held himself. Was that anger she sensed? She didn't understand—he was the one who had stood aside while the pack dismantled her authority among them. He had no right to the anger. A memory, something from long, long ago, something almost forgotten:

And i looked for you.

And i found you.

But not this time? There was no barbed wire fortress to guard Wylla's heart now. It was broken down and decrepit and protected nothing. All the vulnerability she had ever felt in her life, laid bare. Mahler, she begged, his name twisting sourly in her mouth. It hurt her so to be this weak, but a flicker of hope snuffed out was a surer weapon than any sword. He loved her. Didn't he?

Please. Something Phaedra taught her, looming through the gossamer of her shattered mind. Her tongue tripped on the words. They were clumsy and said poorly, but understandable, she hoped. Sie furzen im schlaf.

I love you she fervently thought, employing those words in his tongue that Phaedra had cruelly told her meant the same, unaware of her daughter's humiliating trick. Do not leave me.