"It took us a week to understand what had happened," Aenar said, his voice hollow in the darkness of the Godswood. "A week of chaos and death and not knowing. A week of watching people freeze in the streets while summer was supposed to still be here."
"The cold spread like a wave across the land," he said. "Not like the usual cold. The Wall wasn't just holding back the White Walkers, Father. It was holding back Winter itself."
"And when it fell—"
"When it fell, Winter came with it." Aenar opened his eyes, staring at nothing. "Snow began falling everywhere across Westeros. Everywhere. From the Wall to the Neck, from the Riverlands to the Reach. I didn't know it right away, but later—later I would learn that snow had begun to fall even in Dorne."
Daemon's eyebrows rose. "Dorne? The desert?"
"The desert," Aenar confirmed. "Snow falling on the red sands of the Water Gardens. On the shadow city of Sunspear. On palm trees and orange groves. The Dornish thought it was a miracle at first. Some kind of blessing from their gods. They didn't understand. None of us understood."
He laughed bitterly. "But King's Landing had it worst. The people there, they suffered the most in that first week. One day, the weather is hot enough that you can walk around in light clothes. The next day, within a single day, it's cold enough to freeze water. Cold enough to kill."
Daemon was quiet, listening.
"The temperature dropped like a stone into a well," Aenar continued. "People went to sleep in summer and woke to winter. But they didn't have winter clothes. Didn't have preparations. No proper hearths in most homes, no stores of firewood, nothing. The poor in Flea Bottom, they were the first to die. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, frozen in their beds that first night."
His voice grew quieter. "By the second day, bodies lined the streets. People huddling together in their homes, burning furniture for warmth, burning anything they could find. The markets closed because no one could stand to be outside. The harbor froze solid. Ships trapped in ice, sailors abandoning them to seek shelter on land."
"And you tried to help," Daemon said. It wasn't a question.
"I tried." Aenar's hands clenched. "I opened the Red Keep to as many as we could fit. Had fires built in every room, every hall, every corner. But there were hundreds of thousands of people in King's Landing, and the Red Keep could hold maybe a thousand. Two thousand if we packed them like sardines. What do you choose? Who lives? Who freezes?"
He swallowed hard against the memory. "I had people hide in the ruins of the Dragon Pit. Thousands of them. The structure was mostly destroyed, but the cellars beneath, the passages, they went deep into the earth. Underground, where it was warmer. Where the cold couldn't reach as easily. We packed thousands down there, gave them what blankets and food we had, and prayed it would be enough."
"Was it?"
"For some." Aenar's voice was flat. "Many died anyway. Crushed in the panic. Suffocated in the press of bodies. Starving because we couldn't get enough food to everyone. But more lived than would have if they'd stayed above ground. I counted that as a victory then."
Daemon said nothing to that.
"Within that week, before the raven arrived, thousands died in King's Landing from the cold alone. Thousands. Not from war, not from siege or battle, just from cold. Old people, young children, anyone weak or sick. They went to sleep and didn't wake up. Or they woke up screaming from frostbite, from fingers and toes turning black and dead."
Aenar's voice grew distant. "I walked through the streets on the third day, trying to organize relief efforts. Trying to do something, anything. The silence was the worst part. King's Landing is never quiet. There's always noise, always people shouting and laughing and arguing and living. But that day, the only sounds were the wind and the occasional sob from behind closed doors. Bodies covered in snow like white shrouds. No one had the strength to bury them, and the ground was too frozen anyway."
"And then the raven came," Daemon prompted gently.
"On the seventh day." Aenar nodded slowly. "A raven from Winterfell. From Rickon. The maester brought it to me in the Small Council chamber. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely break the seal."
He could still see the words, still feel the dread that had settled into his bones as he read them.
"The Wall has fallen," Aenar recited from memory. "The dead march south. The Others are real, and they bring Winter with them. We face an army of hundreds of thousands. Without your dragons, without the strength of the South, we are all doomed."
Aenar looked at his father. "That was when I understood. That was when I knew the horn we'd heard wasn't just a sound. It was an announcement. A declaration. The Long Night had returned, and the real war, the only war that had ever mattered, had finally begun."
Daemon exhaled slowly. "And you thought your dragons would be enough."
"I thought dragons could burn anything," Aenar said quietly. "I thought fire was the answer. I was wrong about that too."
The memory came to him like a cold wave, pulling Aenar back to that day in the Red Keep. Back to when he still had hope.
The Small Council chamber felt colder than it should have been, despite the fire roaring in the hearth. Snow pressed against the windows, coating the glass in white. It had been falling for seven days without stopping.
Aenar stood at the head of the table, Rickon's letter clutched in his hand. The parchment was wrinkled, stained with water and what might have been blood. It had traveled far and fast.
Around the table sat what remained of his council. Willas Tyrell, the Hand, leaning heavily on his cane, his face drawn with worry. Lord Randyll Tarly, Master of Laws. Aurene Velaryon, Master of Ships. Grand Maester Marwyn, his chains clinking softly as he shifted in his seat.
And his queens. Daenerys sat to his right, her face pale. Rhaenys to his left, dark circles under her eyes from sleepless nights grieving her lost child. Both wore heavy furs against the unnatural cold.
"Your Grace," Willas said quietly. "What does Lord Stark write?"
Aenar looked down at the letter. His hands were steady, but only because he'd learned to control them. Inside, he was screaming.
"I'll read it in full," he said, his voice carrying in the silent chamber. "You all need to hear this."
He cleared his throat and began.
"To His Grace, King Aenar Targaryen, First of His Name, from Rickon Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. I write to you in the darkest hour our realm has ever known."
Aenar paused, meeting each pair of eyes around the table before continuing.
"The Wall has fallen. The ancient barrier that has protected the realms of men for eight thousand years is gone. Shattered by the Horn of Winter, brought down by the Others themselves. The Night's Watch is broken. Those few brothers who survived rode for Winterfell to bring us warning. They spoke of things I wish were lies, but I know in my bones are true."
"The Others are real, Your Grace. The White Walkers from the stories, from the legends our Old Nan used to tell—they are real. And they march south with an army of the dead. Not dozens. Not hundreds. The survivors speak of hundreds of thousands. Perhaps more. Every man, woman, and child who has died north of the Wall in the last thousand years, all raised to serve the Great Other."
Randyll Tarly made a sound of disbelief. Aenar kept reading.
"I have sent ravens to every castle in the North. Castle Cerwyn, White Harbor, the Dreadfort, Karhold, Deepwood Motte—all of them. I have ordered them to march south immediately. Not to Winterfell, but south, toward the Neck. We must evacuate as many people as we can. Every moment we delay means more dead for the Others to raise."
His voice grew heavier.
"Last Hearth is lost. House Umber's seat, the castle closest to the Wall—by the time this letter reaches you, they will have fallen."
Rhaenys's hand moved to her mouth. Daenerys's fingers gripped the armrest of her chair.
"The North marches, Your Grace. Every man and woman who can hold a weapon. We march to the Neck, to the crossing at Moat Cailin. It is there we will make our stand. The causeway is narrow, the ground treacherous. If we can hold them there, we might have a chance."
"But we cannot do this alone. I beg you, cousin, I beg you as one Stark to another—send your armies north. Send every soldier you can muster. Bring your dragons. Meet us at the Neck. Together, we can defeat this army of the dead. Together, we can save Westeros from an Eternal Winter."
"The Night's Watch brothers who reached us spoke of the Others' power. They are faster than men, stronger than men, and they cannot be killed by normal steel. We know from a Night's Watch brother that Dragonglass can kill them, and from a few wildlings we have learned that fire can kill them too."
Aenar's voice dropped.
"Time is our enemy, Your Grace. Every day we wait, the army grows stronger and we grow weaker. I march within the week. I pray your answer reaches us before the dead do. For all our sakes. For the realm. For the living."
"Your cousin, Rickon Stark, Lord of Winterfell."
Silence fell over the council chamber like a burial shroud.
It was Willas who spoke first, his voice careful and measured. "Your Grace, with all respect... the war against House Lannister ended only a year ago. A year. Our armies suffered terrible casualties. The Riverlands are still recovering from the Freys. The Westerlands from the siege of Casterly Rock. The North from the Battle against House Bolton."
He leaned forward, wincing slightly as his bad leg shifted. "The realm is exhausted. We've barely had time to rebuild, to heal. The harvest was delayed because of the fighting. Our granaries are half-empty. And now you're asking us to march north into winter, to fight an army of the dead that supposedly numbers in the hundreds of thousands?"
"I'm not asking," Aenar said quietly. "I'm telling you what's coming. Whether we're ready or not, whether we're tired or not, the dead don't care. They're coming, and they won't stop until every living thing in Westeros is either killed or turned into one of them."
"But surely—" Aurene Velaryon started.
"There is no 'surely,'" Aenar cut her off, his voice sharp. "There is no negotiation. No surrender. No terms. The dead want one thing: to wipe out all life. And they will do it unless we stop them."
He slammed his hand on the table, the sound echoing.
"People will have to fight one more time. I know they're tired. I know they're hungry and cold and sick of war. But they'll fight again, or they'll all die. Every man, woman, and child in the Seven Kingdoms. That's the choice. Fight or die. There is no third option."
Randyll Tarly's jaw worked. "The men we have left... they're not the soldiers we had a year ago. Half are green boys who've never seen battle. The veterans are wounded, broken. How do you expect them to face this?"
"The same way men have faced impossible odds since the dawn of time," Aenar said. "With steel and courage. And with something our enemies don't have."
He turned to look at Daenerys and Rhaenys.
"We have dragons," he said. "Three dragons. Drogon, Rhaegal, and Meraxes. The dead may number in the hundreds of thousands, but dragons can burn thousands in a single pass."
Daenerys nodded slowly. "We will fly north. All three of us. We'll burn a path through their army that they cannot cross."
"Three dragons against hundreds of thousands?" Willas asked, doubt clear in his voice.
"Three dragons is what Aegon the Conqueror used to forge the Seven Kingdoms," Aenar said firmly. "One dragon was enough to burn Harrenhal. Three dragons brought kings to their knees. Three dragons will be enough."
He said it with such certainty. Such absolute conviction.
Looking back now, Aenar wanted to reach through time and shake himself. Wanted to scream at the fool he'd been.
But in that moment, in that council chamber with snow falling outside and the realm teetering on the edge of oblivion, he'd believed it. He'd had to believe it.
"That should be enough," he said again, meeting each council member's eyes. "Our dragons, and every soldier we can muster. Send ravens to every lord who bent the knee. Tell them to gather their forces and march north. We meet the Northern armies at the Neck within the month."
The council members exchanged glances. Uncertain. Afraid. But they nodded.
"I'll coordinate the naval transport," Aurene said. "We can move supplies and men up the coast, land them at White Harbor or the Bay of Seals."
"I'll handle the levies," Randyll added. "See how many men we can pull from the garrisons without leaving the cities defenseless."
"I'll write to the Citadel," Marwyn said quietly. "See if there are any old texts about fighting the Others. Any knowledge we can use."
Willas was the last to speak. "I'll coordinate the logistics. Food, weapons, warm clothing. If we're marching into winter, our men will need every advantage."
Aenar nodded to each of them. "Then we have our tasks. The council is dismissed. We march in two weeks. Make ready."
They filed out slowly, leaving only Aenar, Daenerys, and Rhaenys.
Daenerys reached for his hand. "You really believe three dragons will be enough?"
Aenar squeezed her fingers. "They have to be."
But Rhaenys was staring at the letter still on the table, and her face was troubled.
"What is it?" Aenar asked.
She looked up at him, and there was fear in her purple eyes.
"I don't know," she said softly. "But something feels wrong about this. Three dragons brought down kingdoms, yes. But that was against men. Against castles and armies that could burn."
She paused.
"What if ice doesn't burn the way flesh does? What if we're not enough?"
Aenar's voice was hollow as he returned to the present. "She was right to be afraid. She knew. Somehow, she knew."
Daemon said nothing, just waited for his son to continue.
"Were they enough?" Daemon asked quietly. "Three dragons against the army of the dead?"
Aenar shook his head slowly. "No. They weren't enough. Nothing was enough."
Aenar closed his eyes, and the memory came flooding back.
That night, after the Small Council had dispersed and the plans were set in motion, Aenar found himself in their private chambers. A place where they could be themselves instead of King and Queens.
The fire in the hearth burned low. Daenerys sat on the edge of their bed, still wearing the heavy fur cloak she'd worn to the council meeting. Rhaenys stood by the window, staring out at the snow-covered city below.
"We should sleep," Aenar said, moving to add wood to the fire. "We'll need our strength for what's coming."
"I can't sleep," Rhaenys said without turning around. Her voice was soft, distant. "Every time I close my eyes, I see snow...and I see them...I have never seen one before, but I can see them...blue figures in the snow, thousands of them marching towards South like a Snow Storm."
Daenerys rose and went to her, placing a hand on Rhaenys's shoulder. "We have dragons. We have armies. We'll stop them at the Neck."
"Will we?" Rhaenys turned, her eyes wide with fear. "Do you truly believe that?"
"We have to believe it," Aenar said, moving to join them. "What other choice do we have?"
Rhaenys looked between them, her dark hair falling around her face, still bearing the shadows of grief from losing her child. When she spoke, her voice was grave.
"Promise me something. Both of you. Promise me you won't underestimate this Army of the Dead."
"Rhaenys—" Daenerys started.
"No, listen to me." Rhaenys's hands gripped both of theirs with desperate strength. "I don't know exactly what they can do. I don't know their full power. But I have a terrible feeling, here—" She pressed a hand to her chest. "—that our dragons might not be enough to kill them all. That we're walking into something we don't fully understand."
Aenar wanted to reassure her. Wanted to tell her she was wrong, that fire would triumph over ice, that their love and courage would see them through.
But the words died in his throat.
"We'll be careful," he said instead. "We'll listen to the Night's Watch survivors. Learn everything we can about how to fight them."
Rhaenys nodded, but the fear didn't leave her face. For a long moment, they stood there in silence, the three of them linked together.
Then Rhaenys looked at the two of them, her face filling with desperation, the same desperation he saw that night when she made him promise that things would get better.
"Aenar. Dany." She looked at both of them, her purple eyes bright with unshed tears. "Once this war is over. Once we've won and the dead are defeated and the realm is safe again—I want us to build a house. A house with a red door and a lemon tree outside."
Daenerys's breath caught. Her eyes filled with tears immediately, and Aenar saw her hand move to cover her mouth.
"Rhaenys," she whispered.
"I mean it." Rhaenys's voice grew stronger, more certain. "No more thrones. No more crowns. Just us. The three of us in a house by the sea somewhere warm. Somewhere safe. With a red door and a lemon tree, and children playing in the garden, and dragons flying overhead because they want to, not because there's a war to fight."
She squeezed their hands tighter.
"That's what we're fighting for. Not the Iron Throne. Not the Seven Kingdoms. For that house. For that life. For the chance to be happy together without politics or war or death hanging over us."
Aenar felt his throat tighten. He pulled both women close, wrapping his arms around them, holding them as tightly as he dared.
"I swear it," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "When this is over, we build that house. We find peace."
"Together," Daenerys added, her face pressed against his shoulder. "All three of us. We survive this. No matter what. We survive and we build our home."
Rhaenys nodded against his chest. "Promise me. Both of you. Promise me we'll live through this. Promise me we'll see that lemon tree grow."
"I promise," Aenar said.
"I promise," Daenerys echoed.
"What does the lemon tree mean?" Daemon asked, pulling Aenar back to the present. "Why that specifically?"
Aenar wiped at his eyes, though the tears kept falling anyway. "When Daenerys was young, just a little girl, she and Viserys were running. Always running. Robert Baratheon had sent assassins after them. The Usurper wanted all Targaryens dead, even children. So they fled from city to city, never staying long, never feeling safe."
He could see it in his mind—Daenerys as she'd described it to him, a silver-haired child clutching her brother's hand.
"Eventually, they found a place in Braavos. A house with a red door and a lemon tree growing outside. It wasn't grand. It wasn't a palace or a castle. But for a little while, it was home. The only home Daenerys ever knew before she was sold to Khal Drogo."
"She remembered that house?" Daemon asked, sounding surprised.
"She never forgot it." Aenar's voice broke slightly. "It was the one good memory from her childhood. The one place she'd felt safe and loved and warm. Where she could be a child instead of an exiled princess. Where she didn't have to be afraid."
He looked up at the weirwood's red face, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"That promise—the house with the red door and the lemon tree—it wasn't just about a building. It was about everything we wanted. Peace. Safety. A home where we could raise our children without fear. Where we could grow old together. Where we could finally stop running and fighting and just... live."
"A future," Daemon said quietly.
"A future," Aenar agreed. "The three of us together, in safety and love. That's what the lemon tree meant. That's what we promised each other we'd survive for."
His hands clenched into fists.
"We were going to build it after the war. Find some quiet place by the sea, far from King's Landing and politics and thrones. Plant that lemon tree together and watch it grow. Watch our children play beneath its branches. That was the dream. That was what we were supposed to have."
The Godswood was silent except for the wind.
"But you never built it," Daemon said.
"No." Aenar's voice was barely a whisper. "We never built it. Because we never got the chance."
Aenar felt tears begin to fall freely now, hot against his cold cheeks. His voice grew thick with grief as he continued.
"I knew the White Walkers were powerful. I knew the Others were unknowns to us. But Father, we never stood a chance against them. Not really. I told myself we did. I told my armies we did. I told Rhaenys and Daenerys we would win."
He laughed bitterly. "I was lying to all of us."
Daemon waited, his expression grave.
"The cold and the winds did most of the killing before the battle even truly began," Aenar said. "The temperature at the Neck dropped so low that men's breath froze in their lungs. Fingers went numb inside gloves. Steel became so cold it burned to touch. And the dragons—gods, the dragons hated it."
His voice grew distant with memory.
"They didn't want to fly. Drogon, Rhaegal, Meraxes—all of them fought against us when we tried to mount. They knew something we didn't. Their fire, when they finally unleashed it, was weaker than it should have been. The flames felt more like the flames of young dragons. The cold sapped their strength just like it sapped ours."
"Your armies?" Daemon asked.
"Half-frozen before the fighting even started. Men could barely hold their weapons. The Northern lords, they were used to cold. The Southern soldiers, the ones from the Reach and the Stormlands—they died in droves before a single blow was struck. Just collapsed in the snow and never got up again."
Aenar's hands clenched and unclenched.
"The battle at the Neck was chaos. Pure, absolute chaos. We'd planned to use the narrow causeway, make them come at us in a column we could destroy piecemeal. But the dead didn't care about terrain. Didn't care about tactics. They just came. A tide of corpses flowing toward us like water."
"They didn't tire. Didn't feel pain. Didn't fear the dragons or the fire or the steel. They just kept coming, and every soldier we lost, every man who fell to their blades or their cold or their rotting hands—they rose again. Within minutes, sometimes seconds, our own dead turned against us."
His voice broke. "We were fighting our friends. Our brothers. Men who'd stood beside us moments before, now trying to tear our throats out with dead hands and empty eyes."
Daemon was silent, but his face had gone pale.
"And then I saw Rhaenys dying."
The words came out strangled, forced through a throat tight with grief.
"She was flying on Meraxes above the battlefield, burning a path through the dead. Her dragon's fire was red and gold, lighting up the darkness, and for a moment—just one moment—I thought we might actually win. That we might hold them."
"Then Meraxes shrieked."
Aenar closed his eyes, but the image was seared into his mind forever.
"It was a sound I'd never heard a dragon make before. Pure agony. Meraxes's whole body convulsed in mid-air, and I saw it, her belly was wide open, blood pouring out like a waterfall. Something had struck from below, punched clean through the scales."
"Meraxes tried to stay airborne. Gods, she tried. The dragon began falling from the sky, spiraling down, and Rhaenys was screaming—I could hear her even over the battle, even over the roar of flames and the clash of steel."
His voice dropped to barely a whisper.
"They slammed into a tower. An old ruined keep near the Neck. Meraxes hit it full force, and the tower exploded in a cloud of stone and dust and blood. Dragon and rider crashed together, and I was screaming her name, pulling Rhaegal around, trying to reach her."
"But there was too much chaos. Too many dead between us. They swarmed the ruins where she'd fallen, a mass of rotting corpses climbing over each other to get to her. I burned them. I burned hundreds, maybe thousands. Rhaegal's fire carved a path through them, turning the snow to steam and the dead to ash."
"But by the time I landed, by the time I fought my way through to the tower ruins—"
His voice broke completely.
"She was gone. Rhaenys was gone. I found her beneath a collapsed wall, Meraxes's wing draped over her like a shroud. There was so much blood. Her armor was crushed, her body broken. She must have died on impact, or maybe moments after. I'll never know."
Tears streamed down Aenar's face.
"I held her anyway. Pulled her from the rubble and held her, and she was so cold, Father. So cold. I kept thinking she'd open her eyes. That she'd look at me and smile and say something sharp and clever like she always did. But she never did. She was just... gone."
Daemon's jaw was tight.
"Later, after everything, I learned the truth," Aenar continued, his voice hollow. "The White Walkers wielded ice spears. Not normal spears—these were made of the same ice as their blades, sharp enough to cut through anything, imbued with the same dark magic that animated the dead."
"They could kill dragons?" Daemon asked, already knowing the answer.
"They could kill dragons," Aenar confirmed grimly. "One of them had struck Meraxes from below, punched through her belly and into her heart. She was dead before she even started falling. She just didn't know it yet."
He wiped at his face with shaking hands.
"But before Rhaenys died, before the battle truly began, I saw someone I thought I'd lost forever."
Daemon's eyebrows rose slightly. "Who?"
"Arya." The name came out like a prayer and a curse together. "My sister. My little sister who I'd been searching for, who I thought was dead. She appeared in our camp the night before the battle, and at first, I was so happy I could barely breathe."
His expression darkened.
"But something was wrong. I went to her, tried to embrace her, but she just stood there stiff and cold. When I looked in her eyes, all the spark was gone. All the fire and mischief and fierce joy that had made Arya who she was—it was just... absent."
"She looked like someone wearing Arya's face. She was stronger than she should have been. Faster. But she wasn't Arya anymore."
"What do you mean?" Daemon asked.
"She didn't remember me." The words were laced with pain. "I tried to talk to her. Asked her about Winterfell, about our family, about the times we'd trained together in the yard. She just stared at me with empty eyes. I asked if she remembered Robb, Bran, Rickon. Nothing. No recognition."
"When I called her Arya Stark, she corrected me. Said 'I am No One.' Like her name, her family, her entire identity had been stripped away and replaced with... nothing. Just this empty vessel trained to kill."
"Where had she been?"
"I don't know. She wouldn't say. But when the battle started, I saw her fight. She moved through the dead like a dancer, her Valyrian steel dagger killing them. I'd never seen anyone fight like that."
His voice grew distant.
"But then I lost sight of her. The battle was chaos, and I had my own fight with Rhaegal. Dragons to command, armies to coordinate, the dead swarming from every direction. I couldn't watch her. Couldn't protect her."
He swallowed hard.
"It was much later, after we'd retreated. After we'd lost the Neck and fallen back with what remained of our armies. The survivors were scattered, broken, half-frozen. I was searching through them, trying to count how many we had left, when I saw her."
"Arya was limping toward us from the direction of the battlefield. Alone. One hand pressed to her neck, blood seeping between her fingers. I don't know how she survived. Don't know how she made it back when thousands of others didn't. Don't know what happened to her out there."
Aenar's tears fell faster now.
"I ran to her. Caught her just as her legs gave out. Lowered her down into the snow as gently as I could."
"She looked up at me with her eyes, and for the first time since I'd seen her again, she looked at me the same way as she used to many years ago. She reached up with her bloody hand and touched my face."
"'Jon,'" he whispered, repeating her words. "'You... are here...'"
"She said my name. And I knew in that moment that some part of her remembered. Some piece of Arya Stark was still in there."
"I held her while she died. Held my little sister, the girl who'd been so fierce and brave and alive, and watched the light fade from her eyes. Her last breath was my name again. 'Jon.' Just that. Just my name."
"And then she was gone. Another person I loved, another life extinguished by the cold and the dark. I never found out what happened to her in that battle. Never learned if she tried to fight the Great Other herself, if she succeeded in getting close, or if she was just caught by one of his lieutenants. All I know is that she died in my arms, finally remembering who she was. Finally remembering me."
He looked at his father with eyes full of anguish.
"Two of them died that day. Rhaenys and Arya. Two women I loved, both gone. And I couldn't save either of them. I was flying on a dragon, commanding armies, burning thousands of the dead, and I couldn't save the two people who mattered most."
Daemon reached out, gripping his son's shoulder hard. "Aenar—"
"That's when I knew we were going to lose. When I knew the dragons weren't enough, the armies weren't enough, nothing was enough. The Great Other was too strong, the dead were too many, and all we were doing was delaying the inevitable."
"But I couldn't admit it. Not then. So I kept fighting. Kept burning. Kept pretending we had a chance."
"And that pride, that refusal to accept the truth—it cost me everything else too."