[ He doesn't want it all to be about anger and rage and pain but that's where this is going. It's the same thing that happened with Dezel and the same thing that happened with Sorey - it all builds up and snaps inside of him. He's not really prone to anger like he had been when he was a few hundred years younger; he'd learned to keep it in check, to let things go, to have it all roll off his shoulders. Having Eizen around, though... It makes it all flare back to life and he feels twisted and tainted by it.

This isn't fair. Eizen looks at him and expects him to stand there and say it all as if it wasn't one of the most painful things he'd ever had to do. Theodora, Silva, Eizen, Mikleo... Dezel... All of them - they all meant so much to him and he had lost them. He wants to embrace the fact that Eizen is back with him but at the same time he feels completely out of his reach.

He squeezes his eyes shut, choked off and desperate. ]

I can't! You don't understand! [ He lifts his head. ] You died, Eizen, you were gone, and since then... So many people... [ And Zaveid survived. Why? ] She didn't cry for long. I couldn't stop it, stop her from - from being there, from seeing it. I tried to do it myself but I wasn't strong enough. Nothing was good enough.