Sanria watched Colin sleep, his breath moving rhythmically in and out, his large chest rising and falling with the respirative effort, his body working of its own accord. She lay there, Orn's words echoing in her mind like a multi-bullet ricochet, "Where have you been? This invasion happened, and you were nowhere around." He was in pain, her son. His bear had died on the field and she was blamed. If she would have been there, she might have saved Reggie. "Where have you been?"
She hadn't planned on active battle. She had her children to think about and the rest of her clan. She had said from the start she wouldn't be involved, but it didn't matter to Orn. The truth was, the truth she couldn't bring herself to admit out loud, was that she had been in the arms of a very familiar new man. She was isolated from Westbridge, deep in the Druid's Grove, away from the carnage and slaughter and death. She was busy feeling the most unguilty sense of peace she'd felt in years while her son was battling a demented mad man and his furry companion was breathing his last. She was feeling a happiness she hadn't experienced in years while her fellow leaders were swinging swords in the name of justice. When she'd come back up for air, all there was to breathe in was the crushing atmosphere of guilt. "Where have you been?"
Orn had apologized to her when he saw the anguish that filled her features, but facing the uproar of emotion that poured from her son broke something deep inside Sanria. She knew his pain, she'd been intimate with it the first time Thasmudyan had died, and when she'd lost Throm. She knew it could make people say things they wouldn't otherwise- a wound exposed: unapologetic and raw. Orn's truth stung like a shower of salt, and Sanria saw what her son wanted far clearer than she had ever before. A mother who was stable, a mother who was with his father - a stable family, home, and clan. "Where have you been?"
She couldn't share with him the joy she'd experienced with Gilean. She could not share just how happy she'd been spending time with Gilean. Instead she would have to do what would help her son. She would fix the pain on Orn's face- anything to make that hurt, heartache, anger, anguish, and rage vanish. She would tell Thasmudyan there would not be a reconciliation. She would swallow the feelings she experienced with Gilean and banish them to the farthest reaches of her soul. She would sit then with a man who didn't remember her or their life together at all. A man who had hallucinations, who needed her to even stay asleep at night. A man with whom there may never be a full recovery. "Where have you been?"
Colin woke only slightly and gave a sleepy smile. "You're like a dream," he said, "appearing to me in the night. Will you be here tomorrow?" Sanria, her heart heavy, nodded her head 'yes.'
