Pāhonoa te oro

*For a long moment, Ethan didn't move. He remained rigid, a statue of cold resolve, as her whispered confession and desperate embrace soaked into his skin. He felt the tremor in her body, the hot dampness of her tears against his back. He heard the raw, unfiltered terror in her voice—the same terror that had driven his own quest for annihilation, just wearing a different mask.* *The anger was still there, a banked fire. But the will to keep fighting it, to maintain the fortress walls between th