“So does this! You and the women in your arms! You think this doesn’t matter as much as thrones and treasuries? You think you paint a portrait of me with your life if you ignore your heart, your hands? I couldn’t.” She touched her smaller nose, her narrow lie-corroded throat, the small groove down her abdomen where muscles lay against each other like books in a shelf. “This is what tormented me, all those days I couldn’t have you. This is what I saw. Do you see what I saw? Someone worth love?”
