The young man was speaking quietly to the girl, a sad and earnest expression on his face. She got up quickly, moving away from him with her hands over her face. Ah, the pain of the jilted lover. The loss, the anger, the shame. It seems as though you’ll never recover. What poet was it who wrote there’s no pain worse than the pain of a broken heart? Sentimental shit. He should have spent more time in the Emperor’s prisons. He smiled, opening his mouth and licking the empty gums where his front teeth used to be. Broken hearts heal with time, but broken teeth never do.
