"So this means that you had wanted to lie when you said you agree?" Darion asked.
Aldric looked at him straight across the table, breathing hard. His eyes were red now, not from injury but from exhaustion and frustration layered on top of each other until they became something ugly. The man looked like he had aged several years in a single morning.
"I honestly don't know why this is hard for you to do," Darion continued. "The same way you wrecked Percvale was the same thing I did to Valdenmoor. I don't know why it's difficult for you to accept and move on."
"It's not the same," Aldric said immediately.
His voice came out rough.
"Because in the end… you won." He laughed once, bitterly. "You burned my barracks. You killed my men. You took probably took my treasury. You burned my farmland." He looked up sharply. "How exactly do I recover from that?"
Darion leaned back slightly in his chair.
That was a fair question.
