VI
Ipsem Exsilium
‘Exile of the Self’
“Antiope, can you go and help your mama inside?” Dagon said to his daughter, not taking his eyes from Lucius.
“Yes,” the girl said, releasing Dagon’s hand and running back to the roundhouse where she disappeared into the darkness of the doorway.
“What are you talking about, Lucius? Leave Ynis Wytrin? This is the safest place for all of us.”
Immediately, Lucius could sense, see, the familiar fear of loss in Dagon’s eyes. He had had that same fear many times before. It was a fear not of losing one’s own life, but of losing those one loved, or of leaving them behind, adrift without protection from the world. That fear stifled action when action was needed.
Lucius knew, however, that the action he needed to undertake did not, could not, involve Dago
