Noctisardor Bypass I own that technology now.

what the world had dealt to heda, she gave back tenfold. an unhealed psyche put through the gamut of emotion and experience in just a few crushing months now reacting in hatred to the only being in the world who had thrust a pike into the one thing she had ever believed.
beneath his comment about god's inability had been a blighted acceptance that caracal was dead, long before heda had once seen fit to accept that. it had been the basis of her flashing teeth, lunging first to strike the truth from anselm's mouth.
she was indeed maddened by the idea that someone else in existence could hurt as much as she did; heda had become obsessed by its conception in a moment, wanting to decimate anselm and seeing all her justification in how he had treated her, on their first meeting, on their second, on any other occasion, until that final moment when she had thought she would be free of him and he had asked to assure she had ended the pregnancy.
he'd hurt her again, even after the rejection of a marriage, the scraps of her dignity torn away by his scathing tone, but she had waited, she had waited. she had not expected to see him again; she had buried all of this down below druid's needs and those of the pups. almost! almost god had let her forget it, until he had sent anselm after etienne.
after etienne, not her, not the possibility that what they had done might have been fruitful.
another abandonment of a man who heda had taught herself would protect her if she did this. the island and its bliss; every man wanted to be a husband. every woman wanted to be a wife.
and too late she had learned she was only a foolish girl in so many regards. her sons had begun to form before she came to this knowledge
this had never been about her, not once; anselm continued to insist upon it. leaving her! when he had done it to both heda and these children he claimed had been a lie. did he only want control over her? she'd offered it! did he only want her to bow her head and say 'i was wrong. i lied. they're yours.' so he could be vindicated? so he could walk away again?
infuriated that this man of all men could continue to hurt her even after she'd punished herself for the sin they'd committed, even after god had seen fit to punish her as well for choosing deception by taking her daughters away, heda braced, took aim, and let fly with a final spear she hoped would pierce a man's sense into his boy's brain.
no one had ever demanded that mahler be a father. he simply knew to do it. and that was all the nuance that she needed to command the same from his son.
"if your mother is wylla," heda grit, "then two of those pups are yours."