[The quiet sigh prefacing his answer encompasses the whole of the story, and at the same time barely brushes the surface of it.]

The same thing that's happened to thousands of Ravkan boys. [A Fjerdan bullet in the guts. The realization that there's no such thing as glory out there.] We were stationed up at Halmhend. I left an officer, and he...never left.

[His voice quavers in a way he despises — and maybe that's another reason has never spoken of Dominik in all the intervening years, so many now that they almost equal the full span of their friendship. He doesn't know how to control the grief that wells up fresh when he wades through those memories. Show weakness so they know that you're human, but never when you actually feel weak.

But Alina has seen him at his smallest. Held him together when he thought he might crack apart. What's one more scar to bare to her? His glance flickers on her, reassuring him of her presence, before returning to the road.]

I was naïve enough to believe that because he was my friend, and because I was a prince, he would be all right. We'd both make it. [A terse shake of his head, as if rebuking his younger self.] In the end, I'm nobody special.

[This country gets you in the end, brother.]