Noctisardor Bypass bedauert

stag's brother. he supposed it was so, and nodded. "yes." perhaps that had been his mistake, to only think of them in the conception of takiyok and ketzia. but that was who had raised the children, and that was who had suffered their loss and departure in the end. it would not be so for stigmata. he had passed before all this was known.
but in both stag and argent mahler saw his kill-brother. the legacy the ironwolf had meant to leave was indeed indelible, though he knew now it had come at the price of themselves.
like the one mahler had exacted from all his own children.
he fell into an unwillingly somber silence, thinking of the children he had been given, and that stigmata had been given. how had he watched such things occur, the pain of both the winterwhite and the idol, and chosen again to do what he did? maybe he felt that would have been able to build such things in a better way, more directly, more concisely.
"i gave to him and ephemeris the role of night vatchmen. they are young and hale. better their eyes in the dark than mine," mahler half-jested, forcing himself to return to the present, to be present with wylla, not marooned upon the island of his own regrets.