#c4e4

Lady and Knight

but brennan specifically framing it as, you keep trying to catch your breath, and you can't, and you realise you might as well stop trying because you'll never catch your breath again, not only really illustrates the kind of desperate loss that this is, but hits particularly hard on a character who was being strangled when he died

you may not have known it at the time (or maybe you did), but your last breath was standing there with aranessa. it was before they got you on that table. the physical wounds on your body have healed, and maybe they'll even stop hurting, but you will never escape the final moment of your death. that terrifying sensation of no air in your lungs and not being able to do anything about it, you're going to feel it until whatever day occtis tachonis ceases to exist, in any form, on any plane

The coffin had a shattered mask like Bolaire's in it. Bolaire is not the singular weapon that killed Rauwyn, but part of the set for the whole play that killed her. That was one of Bolaire's siblings, shattered in that coffin, that then turned to mist when Thaisha touched a fragment. And Thjazi knew that Bolaire was a sentient mask.