Noctisardor Bypass souda

Anselm was suffused with emotions, much like the wave of thoughts that overtook Etienne. He looked to him silently, thoughtfully — wondering what storm raged in those goldcoin eyes. 

It struck him as strange to see Heda supplanted before them. He looked to Etienne again, this time to read his answer. Because he had learned, when he’d first feared Etienne had left him, that the Hollow would not be home if no one he cared for lived in it. He’d realized then, his place wasn’t in the Keep or the Wildwood — it was wherever Etienne went. 

At last, Etienne answered. Anselm’s gaze then slid to Heda — who was so strikingly round of flank in that moment he almost felt guilty for thinking it. As Etienne stalked away, Anselm’s gaze held Heda’s for a moment before he wordlessly rose and limped after Etienne, coming to sit watch over him in the darker section of tree cover. 

He worried for them all — Druid and her coven, Heda and her unborn — but most of all, he worried for the soul who sat in the dirt next to him, bleeding in all the ways Anselm could not see.