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As soon as it left his mouth, Ephraim wanted to take back what he said. He knew, unfortunately, that wasn't something he could do. He watched the hurt unfold across Vercingetorix and his stomach plummeted. The self-loathing phantoms were back. He couldn't see them this time but he could hear the tittering of imagined laughter in his ears, even though he didn't think what he just did was funny at all.

Verx... he quietly croaked, prepared to offer up half a dozen excuses for saying such a horrible and obviously untrue thing. It was possible, then, that the Cheka could pull him back from the brink of abandoning his pack; Ephraim's remorse was spilling over enough that he probably would have been compliant. But then Blixen showed up and snapped at him and all hell broke loose in his skull again, and then Vercingetorix spoke and shattered any hope there'd ever been for Ephraim.

See? He doesn't really care about you and neither does anyone else, jeered the voice in his head, and he flattened down his ears, but his eyes were challenging as they fixed on Blixen. It was just a lie, they don't need you, no one does, look how easily he changes his mind... And what was that Blix had said? How dare he dishonour Heda? Ephraim would never do such a thing! Antumbra was his beloved mentor for all his time in Trigeda and the implication in his former unfair insult was really only for Vercingetorix. Antumbra had no choice but to kill herself and obviously no one had been there to stop her... although he wasn't really sure how much of the former commander mumbo jumbo he really believed, it made sense that if they did exist, they were displeased with Drageda's inaction and sought a change...

No, he hadn't meant to dishonour her in any way, and he was more than a little outraged that Blixen went immediately to that conclusion. But of course, whispered the voice in Ephraim's head, she's like the other. A born Dragedan. You're nothing, not to them. They just assume the worst of you because you're an outsider and scum. You'll never amount to anything. He didn't answer her question with anything but a tortured stare and a slowly wrinkling muzzle. Instead, he pivoted and began to stalk away from both of them, away from Drageda and everything it stood for.