The ivory ring on my gloved hand branded me a liar, and for the first time since that fateful day in the Colosso I was glad of the glove. “You don’t have to be. If I’d wanted a wife, I’d have had one. Anaïs or Selene . . .” There had been others. I had been so long a knight and the Emperor’s favorite—and so long at court. Had I been more susceptible to the charms of women—which is to say had I been the sort of man willing to take advantage of women—I might have had whichever I’d wanted. I wanted her. More than a hundred years together by then, and it wasn’t enough. I still wanted her. Always
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