Wyvern, not a dragon. That hurt. At one time Alex would have liked nothing more than to hear MacSorley refer to the emblem of his arms correctly. As a young knight the jest about the “dragon” on the Seton coat of arms had driven him crazy. But eventually, it had given him his secret war name among the Guard. By calling it a wyvern now, MacSorley couldn’t have made it more clear that Dragon was no longer a part of them.

“I never thought that,” Alex started to explain, and then stopped. He’d never been a part of them. That had always been part of the problem. Why would they understand him now when they never had before?

It was too late for explanations. They all knew that. He would not beg for understanding or forgiveness. He’d made his decision; he would have to live with it.

Or not live, as was the case.

Jaw locked, he turned to the chief of the Highland Guard, Tor MacLeod. “Do what you must.”

MacLeod motioned to Boyd. Fitting, Alex supposed, that it would be his former partner to strike him down. They’d never seen eye to eye. About the war. About the way to fight it. About anything. But instead of pulling his sword from his scabbard, Boyd moved his horse a few feet forward and stopped.

“Was it worth it?” his former partner asked, his mouth a hard line of bitterness and anger.

The deceptively simple question took Alex aback. He’d never thought about it—perhaps because he didn’t want to know the answer.

But he considered it now and answered truthfully. “I don’t know yet.” God willing, he could still do something to put an end to this. He’d made some inroads, but as today’s precipitous attack by Pembroke on Carrick proved, he hadn’t made enough. “But at the time I didn’t feel as if I had any other choice.”

He’d had to do something. He couldn’t go on as he was, and trying to fight from the other side had seemed the best—the only—way of making a difference. If he never had to see another village razed, another family left to starve, another face in the flames, it would have all been worth it. No matter the personal cost.

Boyd’s mouth clamped into an even harder line. “Because of Rosalin.”

It wasn’t a question, so Alex didn’t attempt to answer. Rosalin might have been the final blow, but why he’d left was far more complicated than that.