It is her own name that breaks her, the sound of it coming from those lips, the confusion inherent in the fires of those eyes, the insistent and horrible strength in how she's still being held--in those arms--even after her abortive attempt at fighting. Harrowhark thought she understood the weight of grief, the blow it struck as she lay and wept for Gideon Nav only minutes and myriads ago, but the thing that hits her now is twice as heavy.

"But you died," she says, each word wavering and fragile, humiliatingly childish. Her vision swims pink, tears mingling with blood and tracking down her cheeks. Her throat swells against a howl, bitten nails digging into her palm to keep it back. "You died, and I..." She cannot say it. She cannot say it now, to her, nor perhaps to anyone else in the absence of Pent. The next flood of agony, more blood and more weeping, the ripping spike of pain slicing again along the cracked seams of her skull, saves her from that much.