Vera settled in the wooden chair again. The movement was slow, almost careful. She had not planned to leave him alone but his hand prevented her from hiding in the darker shadows of the room. She could not hide her face, whose muscles strained from the way emotion cut from her eyes to her mouth.
"He..." Her fingers curled inside the ones that held them. Useless fingers. She realized that shame lived somewhere in the grief that clawed through her throat. That emotion had seemed unimportant until now, when she was sitting at Eragos' bedside. He knew nothing of what happened.
Shame. She could count on her hand the times in her life she felt shame. In her heart, she knew she could not have stopped Gola. None of them knew what would happen. But they had been in the same room. The High Lord had been holding her hand and Gola had used her sword. Vera had vowed, vowed, to protect the High Lord. Vera lost her answer for a moment, unable to look up. Instead she fixed her eyes on Eragos' hand.
"Yes, he is."
Sending word was entirely different than this. Letters were formal, brief and shared all of the same words. Vera had not had to explain to anyone what had happened, much less someone she respected. Much less Eragos. She had looked Gola in the eye, after what he'd done. She should be able to look at someone she loved.
The emotion in her eyes was something that she could feel, as if it clung to her pupils and changed the color of her irises until such color bled down her cheeks. Vera clenched her jaw, tilted her chin up and met his gaze. He didn't seem to want to believe her.
"Gola waited for us to be in the room with him. And then took his head with my sword," she said. The words were so plain. There were things she could not describe -- the way the High Lord fell headless, the blood, how paralyzed she'd felt. "He would have stayed, if only for me, had Eithne not blown a hole through him with fire. He fled, too late."
Vera remembered Gola's question. And her response. And felt that she should not deserve to sit in a room with someone she'd demanded to live, after she admitted wanting to die.
"I am sorry. I should have..."
Vera pressed her lips together. There was nothing to be said about how badly she'd failed. Everything they had done, the people they lost, everything they had tried to collect to run a trial was gone. What Vera loved in this country was disappearing at an equally rapid clip. She was the one who argued with Eragos to approach Hatharida for evidence, rather than revenge. She was the one who insisted on going after her father within the law.