How strange to realize that he'd forgotten the precise sound of his father's voice. Oh, Robb would have recognized it anywhere, under any circumstances, but as it now washed over him once again, he understood that he'd forgotten the particular quality of it, the way the syllables were softened and throaty, always with a warmth and earnestness unpinning them. It sounded like nothing else in all the world, and he'd never imagined he'd hear it again.

It was his father's voice that made Robb understand that he was not dreaming, that his mind had not been carried way in the shifting mist. He never could have conjured up a facsimile so wrenching, so accurate.

He made a small, heartbroken sound, a wounded animal at last relenting, and clutched abruptly at the body of the man kneeling before him, hands finding him solid and impossibly real, undeniable.

A sob wrenched from his throat, tears hot as he pressed his cheek against his father's shoulder, a fresh and brutal wave of emotion roiling over him at the sheer, familiar scent of him.

"I'm sorry," he managed, the words pushed from a choked throat. "I'm so sorry."