She was doing her best inside a story that had been carefully constructed to disarm her, and her gentleness was not a flaw, whatever Brandon tried to make of it.

But she could not have survived what came next, and she did not.

The woman who came down the mountain had been through the one experience that strips all the excuses away at once and leaves only what is actually there underneath.

And what was underneath, it turned out — what had been underneath the whole time, waiting for a reason fierce enough to call it up — was steel.

Not cruelty; I want to be careful about that.

I did not become hard, exactly.