Embracing what to all intents and purposes could be called immortality, was, he had begun to believe, presaged by a turning away. Was it not a mortal’s fate—fate, he knew, was the wrong word, but he could think of no other—was it not a mortal’s fate, then, to embrace life itself, as one would a lover? Life, with all its fraught, momentary fragility. And could life not be called a mortal’s first lover? A lover whose embrace was then rejected in that fiery crucible of ascendancy?
