She might not know how it ended, but she knew she had done what she set out to do. What else mattered? How can she hold anger at anyone, knowing all that she did?

"Gratitude is a poor reason to offer aid," she said, as sunny as the gods that Azem's legend had wrought, "and aid contingent on gratitude like as not shall receive none."

She was in the way of the irritating gnat the creature wished to swat, and it swung at her with every intent of knocking her aside. But she took the blow on her shield and let it slide off, making herself an implacable wall. Truth be told, no matter the circumstance, fighting alongside someone made her heart sing. After all those years alone, only to end it by fighting alone against eight who stood against her? This was life, this was living.