“They were like children,” she said. “I didn’t—I didn’t want . . .” “You never want to hurt them.” Altan sounded gentler than she’d ever heard him—gentler than she’d ever permitted his memory to be. “But you have to. You have to put them through hell, because that’s the only way anyone else will survive.” “I would have spared them if I could have.” For once, he didn’t jeer. He just sounded sad. “Me too.”
