บท 707: The Road Home - Part 6

For someone else to acknowledge it as difficult, with that much emotion, it pulled the rug out from under everything that Oliver was. His strength was built on a lie to himself – that he could do more, that he could withstand more. For someone – a woman especially, one that he was so close to – to wield such a line, more effective than even the deadliest of spears, it pierced his heart straight through.

The tears came unbidden. The dam fully broken. All that he'd neglected to fully consider poured forth at once, as Nila tightened her grip on him, and he on her. Greeves glanced at them out of the corner of his eye, his own tears flowing. Judas sniffled, trying to clear up the two streams that ran from his eyes.

Everyone that they'd lost. Dominus, whom Oliver hadn't properly mourned, who had given him so much. A death that Oliver had taken in his stride, as though it was completely natural. He'd thrown himself forward, unwavering.