Perhaps the message Max received should have brought him relief. Rosalia was alive, and for a moment, he stared at those words as though reading them again might finally allow him to breathe. Yet the longer he looked, the more desperately he wondered what had happened for her to survive.
Somebody as protected as Rosalia should never have been within reach of the enemy. There would have been people standing before her, shielding her with everything they possessed, and others pulling her away the moment danger approached. Max knew them well enough to understand that they would never have left her exposed while they still had the strength to protect her.
Something must have happened to them first.
