Rowan had endured horrifying betrayals and deception in his life, and yet, when he thought he had fully understood the game of life, anytime he became more comfortable in his role in the grand story, reality came around and swept his feet out from under him.
The tragedy of the whole story was that Rowan needed this confidence in himself and his abilities, or he would be unable to fight against the monsters who held all of existence in their grasp.
He knew that he was not just fighting against evil, but evil that had awareness, ancient and cold. But even with this knowledge, he had been led astray.
Rowan closed his eyes and tried to settle his rapidly beating heart. He always knew that the journey ahead would be hard and that he would most likely fail. All the evidence pointed to the fact that he would lose the ultimate battle, since the board was greatly stacked against him.
