Jade Fern Grove klagelied

wylla loved him so dearly, and mahler felt the sensation tear beneath his skin. he was undeserving, and yet she had come back 
— for him and why eddying through his throat until the lavender thaw of his stare gave way to a pair of muted tears carving their dark furrows across his stricken countenance. she had left she had come back she had left again she had come back, over and over, and mahler found he could blame her for none of it. the dawngild frame of wylla, moving back and back and mahler following with a desperate step,
"it is not just for them i stay," he choked. "sagtannet vas for our children. i cannot tear it down and drag them into the vorld, vylla, not vhen they have suffered so much. and phaedra —" and now truly stumbling in his strife not to let a sob come to life, "vill never forgive me, and i - i," mouth gone dry, "how can i move forvard if in my vake i am alvays hurting somevone?"
run into the winter storms with their reticent, disaffected brood in tow, trying to undo the stamp of their own continued conflict from the children they had created together? how would thade understand? would astraeus come with them as his son? ciri and elke; if he went off at wylla's side, did he release his attempt at remaining their father? 
mouth shutting hard upon anything that would come after; the sunspre beckoning his ageing bones to camp amid the stone before nightfall arrived.
but he could not move from his place; mahler wanted so desperately for her to stay wit him in this greencup of a world frozen vivid in its wait for spring, wanted to reside here with wylla until their callousness was sloughed away —
a painful swallow, eyes wet with bitter brine. she could not come back to the place he had built; her misery ascertained and he would not insult her with another request. but he could not leave, for he could not fathom choosing such a heavy blow for rivenwood, for the children who were not his but whose mother trusted him for shelter. for herself. for astraeus, where he might be. and for, perhaps at last, his moonspear daughters to come time by time and exist not in the shadow of dislike posed by the woman he loved.
"you come back and tell me of your need for me, of your love, and that you vant to come avay vith me," floodgates, "but you ignore that ve ruled two mountains as vone and it did not — ve did not succeed. vill you leave again, vylla? if i fail you again? i do not," voice shuddering into a whisper, "i cannot lose you again. it has been a torment that you are gone from me. in the day. i do not sleep. i do not eat. i vant only you, but i cannot abide by my vants. i cannot be ruled by my desires. i have a responsibility to sagtannet. it is more than me now. it is more than us."