"When you have someone to protect, you can do impossible things."
***
He was eight years old again.
Sitting beside Elara's bed in their cottage.
The fire crackled in the hearth. Cast dancing shadows on the walls. Outside, the wind howled around the eaves. Brought with it the distant sounds of battle.
Goblin raid. Another one. They came so often that year that they started to blur together.
Elara couldn't have been more than five. Her small frame was dwarfed by the thick quilts their mother had piled around her. So many quilts that she looked like she was drowning in wool and cotton.
Even then, the sickness had been there. A pale cast to her skin that never quite went away. The way she tired so easily when other children her age ran and played without pause. The way her coughs rattled in her chest like stones in a dry gourd.
"Tell me about the knights again, Rhys."
Her voice was barely audible above the wind rattling their shutters. Barely more than a whisper.
