Kvothe had never dared to dream that she might live happily ever after.

But neither had she thought that her taste of happiness might be so fleeting.

Limbs leaden and heart aching, she parted ways with Medusa to seek out her King, a thousand thoughts spinning through her mind like broken shards of glass. Meeting Ironclad… it had been like the sun rising for the first time in a land of eternal night. Suddenly, the chestnut mare knew warmth and brightness that banished the shadows of her past. Out of gratitude, she’d given herself to the greying stallion - and somehow, in that surrender, found even more. Hope and euphoria and something deeper than words could touch. Kvothe belonged in the Inlet as she’d never belonged anywhere. Belonged to Ironclad body and soul. But now - but now…

Now the sun had set, and she wandered in darkness again.

It was too unfair, perhaps, for the red Friesian to presume that her King would turn away from her. And yet regardless of Medusa’s words, she still felt wholly responsible for what had happened on the Crossing. It was she who had allowed her attention to wander from Pike for even a single moment. She who had felt desperation enough to place her trust in a stranger. And it was she, inevitably, who had twisted the bachelor’s compassion into something darker. The sun had set, and it was Kvothe’s own fault that she might never bathe in its light again, her coat burning like a single ember. She should have never allowed Tyr to help her. She should have thanked him for his kindness, and then turned him away. It would have been better to break her own heart then, in order to save his.

Shaking out the burr-entangled threads of her fiery mane, the red woman pressed onward across the Inlet. Struggling beneath the burden, and drawing heavily from the strength that Medusa had lent her. Somewhere ahead, she could scent the stallion who was both her home and her heart. And on herself, she could still smell the one who was neither. Tyr. No matter what the Queen had told her, she could not help but to trust him - especially now that there was the chance she might carry his child. Even if it had been his intention from the beginning, she could not darken her thoughts against him. It was enough of a burden to face without carrying hatred or resentment in his heart.

She had wandered far enough from the herd, now, that their silhouettes had combined. Far enough that no voices reached her pointed ears, and that the frigid air she breathed tasted only of storm and sea. And it was there - on the very brink of desolation - that Kvothe stopped. Letting the wind carry the heavy curtain of her mane across her face, burying her deep brown eyes beneath it. Concealing the puckered pink lines of her scar.

And lifted her muzzle to the heavens, calling out for the one she loved in a sound that was both elegy and aria.