His name left her lips like a plea. Tears welled instantly and spilled over.
Brian's mouth curved into the faintest smile even as more blood spilled across his teeth. His eyes, already growing glassy, found hers.
Kira lifted her head. Rolf still stood only a few steps away, one hand locked around the hilt of the sword buried in Brian's chest, breathing hard, his ruined face slack with the particular confusion of a man whose plan has gone somewhere he didn't send it.
"Do you know," Kira said, and her voice came out strangely flat, "that's the first time in my entire life you've ever said my name?"
Rolf blinked at her.
"Not once." She could hear her own heartbeat. "have you called me by name." She took a step forward. "And the very first time you use it, it's to kill me with."
Rolf's grip shifted on the hilt, and he began to pull the sword back out of Brian's chest.
Kira's eyes went white.
