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Dailisa stormed into her office and tried to slam the door, but Nathaniel Howe was on her heels. She threw her helm onto her desk where it skidded across the top, sliding to the floor along with most of the papers that had been there.
Nathaniel stopped just inside the doorway, giving his Commander a wary look as he crossed his arms.
"Have I offended you in some way, Commander?"
That appeared to be all the woman needed. She crossed the room in three quick strides, coming to stop inches away from the archer. She shoved him, sending him off balance against the wall and said, "You think I can't hear what you bastards say when we're out somewhere."
Nathaniel was completely at a loss. "What in the Maker's name..."
The small warrior drew herself up to her full height, yet spoke quietly. "You want to know if your father suffered."
Seeing her fellow warden pale drew a cold and humorless smile from the Warden Commander. "No, I don't believe he suffered. Certainly not as much as my father did, after that bastard left him for dead."
Nathaniel opened his mouth, but she continued, "No! I will have my say, Nathaniel. I fought him face to face and alone. I made those with me deal with his guards. I fought him with far more honor than he deserved."
Dailisa turned abruptly and stalked to the other side of the room, putting her desk between Nathaniel and herself. He was pale and shaken, but stood firm and silent in the face of her verbal onslaught.
Suddenly, she sighed and sat hard into the chair at her desk and buried her head in her hands. Howe hesitated for a moment before walking toward the desk. As he quietly leaned down, putting his hands on it, Dailisa looked up and said, "How long is this going to be between us, Nathaniel? You have Delilah, I have Fergus. Both of us have lost so much." she looked down at her hands, at a loss for words.
"What were his last words?" Nathaniel spoke quietly enough that Dailisa could pretend she hadn't heard, but she was never a coward. She spoke without looking up.
"If you have one decent memory of your father left, Nathaniel, don't ask me this."
"Do you remember them?"
The Warden Commander bolted out of her chair and put herself nearly nose to nose with Nathaniel. "I will never forget them. I will probably always wake in the middle of the night with them in my mind as if he'd just said them in my ear. You.Don't.Want.To hear.This."
Nathaniel Howe's grey eyes blazed at Dailisa's golden ones. "You think me weak."
"Get out of my office, Warden. Now."
He looked as if he wanted to argue, instead he turned abruptly on his heel and began to march out. As he reached the door, Dailisa said, "Nathaniel."
The archer stopped but did not turn around.
"Do you think this will lay him to rest for you?"
Without turning, he nodded curtly.
The Warden Commander sighed sadly. "I think you are wrong. But it is not my choice to make. He said to me, at the very last, "Maker spit on you." Nathaniel stiffened as she went on, "and he said, 'I deserved more.' Even at the end of all of it, his greed overwhelmed everything else. Is this what you wanted to hear, Nathaniel?"
Nathaniel Howe strode out of the Commander's office and slammed the door.
Dailisa Cousland sat down abruptly at her desk and stifled a sob in her hands.