There's a bone-deep ugliness in Einar that Kit recognizes from a different man in a different room, decades in his past. Beraht had the same ugliness in him. Like stains under the fingernails from soaking your hands in blood. Doesn't matter that someone else did the bloodletting for you.

Kit glimpses the small gesture Wren makes, feels something tight in his chest uncoil, but it doesn't loosen, not fully. Not when he looks to Yngvi's face, sees the desperation written in newly formed lines there, the threads of his composure unraveling. Kit doesn't have the head for diplomacy, for maintaining appearances like this, and he starts to take a slight step towards Yngvi, only stopping himself because as bad as it is, he doesn't want to make it worse.