That voice. How could he have missed it when she was taken? Surely she'd cried out.
"I didn't hear you," he said, knowing that he didn't know where she was taken from, but feeling that he should've heard her scream all the same. Instead, his mind had taken him to other places, and he... he hadn't heard her at all. "I said I could protect you. From anything."
He had set the bowl down when she reached for him, and now his arms were filled with her. Again, he used his broken hand to stroke the crown of her hair, and wished she hadn't tied it up in a pony tail.
Was he so broken that he couldn't even be a good sentinel? Soldiering was easy. But protecting others - that, apparently, was beyond him.
He would have to try harder. He would have to stay closer.