[ He tries believing it, by force of will. An opportunity to protect the world, or perhaps only a grand adventure, appearing out of the alleys in Val Royeaux, too great to turn from, and Athessa is on horseback in one of the ancient forests where she felt more at home, full of purpose and singing to the trees.
For a moment he wonders what they thought, his brothers and sisters. If they imagined him walking away into something bright, if they imagined him devoured by the city. (It was both; a sunlit gullet.) Or if they didn't imagine anything. If he slipped out of their sight and minds at the same time, like dozens of others after them—like Alexandrie and Byerly, once—and maybe like Athessa now.
But he would rather be forgettable than her be hurt. So until he knows better, she is in the forest.
He slips loose of feeling sorry for himself. Thinks instead through a handful of unsatisfactory explanations for a husband failing to write to his wife for long enough to make Alexandrie so still. ]
We were waylaid by bandits once—Athessa and I. I was still pretending, you know, not to know one end of a dagger from the other, but she handled them all herself, like it was nothing.
[ Loki is in the shadow of that, too. Bastien never saw him fight, but he's made three different people recount the Grand Tourney for him. ]
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[ He tries believing it, by force of will. An opportunity to protect the world, or perhaps only a grand adventure, appearing out of the alleys in Val Royeaux, too great to turn from, and Athessa is on horseback in one of the ancient forests where she felt more at home, full of purpose and singing to the trees.
For a moment he wonders what they thought, his brothers and sisters. If they imagined him walking away into something bright, if they imagined him devoured by the city. (It was both; a sunlit gullet.) Or if they didn't imagine anything. If he slipped out of their sight and minds at the same time, like dozens of others after them—like Alexandrie and Byerly, once—and maybe like Athessa now.
But he would rather be forgettable than her be hurt. So until he knows better, she is in the forest.
He slips loose of feeling sorry for himself. Thinks instead through a handful of unsatisfactory explanations for a husband failing to write to his wife for long enough to make Alexandrie so still. ]
We were waylaid by bandits once—Athessa and I. I was still pretending, you know, not to know one end of a dagger from the other, but she handled them all herself, like it was nothing.
[ Loki is in the shadow of that, too. Bastien never saw him fight, but he's made three different people recount the Grand Tourney for him. ]