The Crippled God (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #10)

by Steven Erikson

‘Yes, you must be. I’m sorry. But, Cotillion, you gave me more than your anger. Don’t you see that? The man I love does not now grieve for me. His love is not for a ghost, a brief moment in his life that he can never recapture. You gave us both a chance to live, and to love – it doesn’t matter for how much longer.’ ‘I also spared the Adjunct, and by extension this entire army.’ She cocked her head, momentarily disoriented. ‘Do you regret that?’ He hesitated, and that silence rippled like ice-water through Lostara Yil. ‘While she lives,’ he said, ‘the path awaiting you, and this beleaguered, half-damned army, is as bitter as my own. To the suffering to come…ah, there are no gifts in any of this.’ ‘There must be, Cotillion. They exist. They always do.’ ‘Will you all die in the name of love?’ The question seemed torn from something inside him. ‘If die we must, what better reason?’