Marion watched the nobles of the court glut themselves on each other in the throes of their passion in a grotesque amalgamation of tangled limbs, wet mouths, and grasping fingers. In the midst of this . . . display, no one belonged to anyone. Even as a simple onlooker, Marion began to feel like she didn’t belong to herself. Amid this feast of flesh, there was no singularity or distinction between bodies or the spirits they harbored. They were all made one by . . . hunger. That was the word for it.
