“I wasn’t just a rich kid. My father pulled political favors and got me appointed as a Judge. I was on the damned war council. I knew what was going to happen. I could have leaked it. I could have sent warnings. And when he ordered me to execute my best friend’s family I didn’t do anything to stop it. I pleaded. I cried. But I didn’t do anything. All that god damned power and I just wept.

“And then I ran away. Decided none of it was my responsibility. Changed my name — Balthier isn’t even real. He’s the person I wanted to be. I made him up. Spent my years chasing shiny things from romantic stories that didn’t matter. I knew my father was researching new weapons. Ignored it. Convinced other people to ignore it. Still didn’t spread what I knew from the council. Then my father destroyed my mother’s city. Maybe I couldn’t have stopped a war but I could have stopped a lot of pain. You and Nolan and Thunderclap — you all have the will to act, always. Even in your story, you were trying to build something better. I just run.”

His voice is weak and some of the tears have made it silently to his face. He learned not to make sound when he cried a long time ago and he hates that anything leaks out now. He knows David’s story is a thousand times heavier than his own, that he’s just crying poor me for problems he’s created himself, but he can’t stop.

“I’m sorry,” he says weakly. “I always make things about myself.” That’s why he doesn’t talk about himself.