“Heavens save us from another such victory. We’ll have no one left on our island but corpses.”

Keles squeezed his hand. His mind grew ever more aware of her presence. He heard her every breath. He felt every twitch of her arm and fingers. She was far better than he could ever deserve, he knew that, but that didn’t change that she was there, with him, choosing to be in this moment. He was afraid to look in her direction. His emotions were high, and he wasn’t thinking straight. Part of him was convinced he would say or do something very stupid if he saw her beautiful brown eyes, her small button nose, and the soft curve of her jaw.

“Am I wrong to feel this way?” he asked, then immediately clarified. “About the executed. About my failing to save them.”

“You can’t save everyone, Cyrus. You know that. It wasn’t your fault Magus was more ruthless than any of us predicted.”

“But it’s… it’s not the guilt that eats away at me. I’m angry that I feel this guilt. I don’t want it. I’m furious at the world for thrusting this burden on me. And then others who have spent far more years fighting the empire, people like Mari, Rayan, and Stasia, congratulate me. It feels like a twisted joke. Forty hanged, dying in my name, and yet I receive adulation. I don’t deserve it, Keles. I don’t.”

“Why are you so harsh on yourself?” she asked softly.

Cyrus leaned back and exhaled long and whistling through his clenched teeth.

“When Thorda first brought me to his countryside mansion, he gave me a choice. I could stay, and become what I am now, or I could run. I could run away from my responsibilities. I could turn my back on everything I had been, adopt a new name, and become a war orphan, merely one among thousands. And do you know what I did? I ran. I sprinted out into the rain and fled all the way to the gate of his property, but I couldn’t go through it. The guilt would haunt me. I knew the choice I wanted to make, yet I lacked the strength to make it, and so I stayed.”

He let out a broken laugh.