“Awful, isn’t it? To love someone so very deeply? To love them enough that you would lose yourself to them, lose everything to them, if it meant they might stay beside you a little while longer?” There was mockery in Corien’s voice, with sympathy close behind. “I loved like that once, as you know. I loved many times before that, but never again since. It’s lonely to be loveless for a thousand years. Lonelier still to build an empire from the ashes of a world destroyed by your own mistakes, and to do that not once but twice.”
