The Summer War

by Naomi Novik

All I understood was that there was something wrong with me, the same thing that was wrong with them, and you were showing me what it meant. What you had to do about it. And I didn’t see anything I could do to stop being wrong, because I hadn’t done anything to start. So afterwards, I was only waiting for you to come and take me, to do the same.”

This was his own way around the curse: a way to die for love, instead of glory. Something that was worth dying for, to him.