He did not mean for the words to sound as cruel as they did, truly.
But his father's reports did not lie. Leal had come to accept over the last few days that he needed to find another way by which to measure his worth as a man. He thought that Hilde, in her turn, should not falter in her own budding acceptance of Lothar's death.
Because unless he missed his mark, Leal was now certain that this man and the "teacher" she recently spoke of were one and the same.
At that moment, whatever she was seeing—whatever vision was bringing her spirit close to crumbling when nothing else did these last few hours—it was merely an illusion.
"Hilde," Leal said by her ear, the first time he had ever uttered her name. He had forced his voice into a gentleness it was not accustomed to, but all the same,
