A pause.
"I did trade it," she said. "I traded pieces of myself and still lost him."
The room seemed smaller with each word. Her recovered body, still trembling from pain and treatment and the lingering indignity of being so utterly seen, now held a heavier burden than exhaustion: choice.
Not the old battlefield choice.
The new one.
What will you become if it brings him back?
That question sat between her and Viktor like a second presence in the room.
And Tina already knew the answer.
Anything.
That was the horror of it.
Anything.
She thought of Remus downstairs years ago, blood in his mouth, trying to rise on broken bones.
She thought of her son disappearing.
She thought of empty winters and spring searches and long reports that ended in nothing.
She thought of cradles she could not bear to throw away.
Then she looked at Viktor again, and though fury still lived in her, something colder and more deliberate settled around it.
