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He was tired. The war had taken a bigger toll on him than he expected and he was just... tired. When Alina ran, he had been unexpectedly torn apart, and the facade was wearing thin. But now, the pain of all the things he'd lost weighted like never before, threatening to overtake him and undo everything he'd fought so hard for. Ravka had taken enough away from him, so maybe it was time he threw in the towel, cut his losses. But it also seemed too late for that. In trying to save a ruthless country, he'd lost his mother.
He was fighting a war on two fronts: Ravka's and his own. It's not like he'd had the best relationship with his mother, but she was his mother nonetheless. In her own way, she loved him and tried to do what she thought was best for him. It's a shame her judgement had been so off. She had died and he still didn't understand why she didn't share his vision, her, the very woman who had taught him everything he knows, who had made him understand that the world was a ruthless place, specially for a Grisha. In a way, she was the reason he was even doing this in the first place, the reason why he decided to make a better Ravka and to create a safe haven for all Grisha. He missed her terribly.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it. Her betrayal was something that he didn’t expect,
not even in a worst case scenario. Sure, they had disagreed on a lot of things along the years, but he never imagined she would cross that line. Punishing her was the hardest thing he’d ever done. He knew it had been necessary, he couldn’t have shown weakness, and certainly she knew that just as well. Even so, it felt so inherently wrong for a son to punish his own mother, so twisted, that he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself for it. Upon learning that she had aided in Alina’s escape, he had been filled with rage, yes, but mostly he felt hurt . So much so that it almost made him give everything up, everything he had ever fought for, all that he had sacrificed to get to where he was now seemed pointless, irrelevant. For so long she had been his north, his mentor, his protector. However harsh she had been in raising him, he remembered feeling sheltered, guarded, safe. He never doubted, not for a second, that his mother would protect him no matter that cost. But those were simpler times, when he still had a boy's name and a heart too full of innocence to see the world as it truly was. Sometimes, he wish he could go back and just be a boy again, instead of carrying this terrible weight on his shoulders. He was tired of being vilified, tired of playing that role. He'd had a shred a hope of something good with Alina, but that was taken from him too, and that wasn't something he could forgive, no matter how hard he tried. But despite all that, he knew in his heart he loved his mother, harsh, cold, unrelentingly stubborn as she was, and he would mourn her death for as long as he breathed.