Aeotha felt like pressing herself to the back of her cell, rather than close enough to the window for the torchlight to find her face. But she was frozen there and listening to what seemed to be the ravings of a madman. Aeotha had let deaths weigh on her soul for a long time. Let them lead her through life for far too long. Maybe she should have continued to find those answers, instead of returning to Lorien. But when she finally did return to Lorien she was thrust into a position she neither understood, nor wanted at the time. Now it was everything. And if Lorien found it in herself to point Aeotha to Leir, and Leir to Skandra there was nothing Aeotha could do about the madman that wanted answers. She had none for him.
Aeotha tried to look past her cell towards Leir's, it was impossible given that she couldn't look through walls, but she was looking either way. She could have told Skandra that it was fate, he'd have called her a fatalist, and they would have argued about it more. No reason for it now. They were far to close to the end of this. To the end of Eiron, and if Aeotha could have tasted sweet revenge it would have been honey on her tongue by now. Too close, Skandra was asking questions that neither could answer. Ralus was dead because of them, and Aeotha couldn't be sorry for it. She wouldn't be sorry for it. He didn't have to come along, and there had been warnings all along. Maybe it was their fault, and maybe she'd see it that way later, but right now Aeotha was staring at the keys Skandra had in hand.
Ralus would be written into their memories, that was all Aeotha could give Skandra if she ever decided to talk to him. Ralus was a part of something bigger now, something bigger than all of them. Aeotha couldn't offer the centries old answer to Skandra's questions. He was no believer, Aeotha wasn't going to press that answer and hope he took it like gold in his hands. He wouldn't, and she couldn't answer him that way. Instead she looked past him and into the deeper darkness beyond the torch light.
Her answers were waiting somewhere up there. Her mission would be finished up there. Everything was waiting on him now, and Aeotha's hands found the bars to rattle them herself. She didn't want to wait. She didn't want to be stuck here another moment with a Skandra she didn't know, and couldn't cherish. She wasn't the Aeotha to argue with him, or to stand around any more. She shouldn't have spoken to Eiron before, and now she knew she wasn't going to talk to Skandra. It was up to Leironuoth. Why had he come in the first place, Skandra never did anything he didn't want to do, not really. She hadn't offered him money, as far as she knew Leironuoth hadn't offered him money. It was cruel to think that's all that Skandra ever wanted.
She was being cruel. But he had tried to kill her. It seemed to be fair to be cruel to him. Crazy as he was being, asking Questions they couldn't answer. Sane people didn't ask them, religious people might have, but he was the one that said they were all a little crazy. Aeotha pressed herself to the door as if that'd make a difference. Like that'd make him come over at unlock her and let her free so she could go and tear out Eiron's tongue herself. Everything was crumbling, and they had no time for questions.