Images of his uncle flashed in Leonel's mind.
He had never seen his father struggle before. That man seemed to do everything with an incomparable ease, as though everything was in the palm of his hands.
His uncle, however, had struggled twice before him. The first time when he tried to complete the painting of a spear and failed, and the second time was when he revealed to Leonel that beneath his golden armor, he was entirely drenched in sweat.
Back then, Leonel could see the straining of his muscles, the every twitch of their individual fibers. He had felt that his uncle was at his very limits, and yet he put his golden armor back on as though nothing at all had happened.
