Jade Fern Grove klagelied

Mahler's voice was a pained rasp as he turned, a glacier in a wolf's skin, and made to leave. A frightful moment where she pulled after him, an apology on her tongue, which she clasped behind her teeth as she grounded her feet. The leap of metal on her tongue as she realized she had bit the tip of it. She hadn't felt it.

I won't, she whispered to herself, as much because it would break her to give more of herself to him as because she truly had nothing left to give. She sagged. I can't. One day it might be Phaedra or Thade who hated her for not being there for them. She could not see the things he had done for her because they did not sing to her heart of hearts, and perhaps that made it as much her failing as his. She saw only what she had given and not received in kind.

One day it might be him.

She stood there a long time, snow blanketing her head and back, before she carved her paws from the earth with a creaky lurch and turned back toward the seaside. Finished, then. He knew the cost she had paid, and he turned away and bid her give no more because he would not give her a quarter, she imagined, and now Wylla knew that she would never be enough for him, nor anyone else, it seemed.

Not her father. Not Grimnismal. Not Tiercel or Phaedra or Thade, not Sagtannet. And not for he who loved her, the deepest strike of all. Blood bloomed from the cut and scalded her soul with loathing and anguish and unworthiness.

She doubted it would ever heal.