"I am sure there will be no small number of nations that will take me to my end," Gaius says, unruffled. The hypotheticals are just that. "But Valdeaulin has never showed me kindness, and his grief runs deep. I am not fool enough to think it will assuage his pain, but he is."

Muscles start to relax under Estinien's hands; the tension of it is melting away, and Gaius is losing himself in the touch. He cannot bring himself to feel wretched about his lot; he saw his path, he walked it, and now that he has reached the chasm between him and the future, he will walk it until he falls. There is a certain peace in knowing that there will be an end to it all, and that his death will not be meaningless.