He remembered feeling as she felt, not so long ago now, in a farmhouse on the road back from Illos. And he remembered precisely how she had responded to him. As though he were committing a crime, as though he should be grateful that those who opposed him were dead. He owed her something more than that. And yet Eragos hoped she made the connection between then and now. Confronting your past was never easy. And whether or not someone you loved was trying to kill you, somewhere in your heart you still felt it. The same feeling that allowed you to love them in the first place. A respect, a reverence. And most importantly that wistful sense of the past as perfection. More than most he knew how she felt. And thought he always would. Strange to think they would have so much more in common than he'd first thought.
So much more than a temper.
"If you'd died," Eragos answered with a grim twist of his lips. "Then you would be spared all of this."
And that was the reason it felt easier, or at least more welcome, this idea of death. No one wanted to think that they'd failed in their chosen task. That they'd tried to protect that perfect vision of the past and failed. That everything they'd felt in their younger years might have been a lie, might have been a trick, and there was nothing they could do about it. Eragos thought that sensation was worse than death, himself, but that was why he relished it so. Reminders of the past were not always so obvious as cursed tattoos that proclaimed you a broken soul. Yet they stood out just as sharply, and were just as hard to avoid, no matter who you were. No matter what you were reminded of.
"But I couldn't let that happen," he went on in a stronger voice. "For the same reason that you couldn't, in Illos. I accepted my death, then, for the wrong reasons. So did you."
A pause.
"And I couldn't let that happen, if I could stop it."