"Why should you have stayed?" she asked, in counterpoint. "Your priority has always been Rhy and you were given a way out. Why would you have stayed in a place like that when you had the choice to take him home?" And why would he have stayed without Rhy, if Hakkyuu was gone? If he was among people who did not understand who might have never forgiven him?

Neria loosed herself from his arms just enough so she could look at him. Her arms came up, no longer around his middle; she looped them around his shoulders so she was holding him this time.

"You didn't leave, Kell. You made a choice to walk away from a situation where your choice had been stripped from you in the first place." Kell had never wanted godhood and had been killed to ascend. He hadn't had the option to refuse.

"And staying in Aallotar as...as the Rose Knight? To be there at their whims? I don't think you'd have done that, either."

Neria looked into his face.

"Do you think I hate you for going?"