She will meet my eyes, and again I will see the truth in them. Sober or drunken, her desire overwhelms me. I yield, weakened into deceit, into betrayal. I make of vows a mockery, even as I long to utter them for myself, and find their honest answer returned to me, in this uneven woman with her uneven love. There are many fools in the world and I must count myself among them.

Who could be righteous in this midst of failings, these seething flaws hiding behind every familiar mask? And what of this delusion, that the mind of the nefarious, the criminal, was a stranger’s mind, with sensibilities alien and malign? We are cheaters one and all. I see the proof of that in myself. Even as I long for and, indeed, demand virtues among others – in the name of reason and propriety – I am hunted by my own vices, and would elude the bite of reason and make of propriety nothing more than a public front.

And now I fear that I am not unusual, not cursed into some special maze of my own making. I fear that we are all the same, eager to make strangers of the worst that is in each of us, and by this stance lift up the banners of good against some foreign evil.

But see how they rest against one another, and by opposition alone are left to stand. This is flimsy construction indeed. And so I make masks of the worst in me and fling them upon the faces of my enemies, and would commit slaughter on all that I despise in myself. Yet, with this blood soaking the ground before me, see my flaws thrive in this fertile soil.

Ahead, where the way sloped upward to cut through the crest line of a ridge, Galar Baras saw the picket towers flanking the road. But no guards stood on those elevated platforms. Have they decamped? Did someone else bring the news to them? Toras Redone, will we slip past one another yet again, to ever stretch the torment of our love? He would welcome that bitter denial, and if by surfeit alone could drown every desire, would have them never meet again.

Kicking his horse into a canter, he rode up the slope.

The banners remained on the watch towers, announcing the Legion’s presence. The absence of guards marked an uncommon breach in discipline. It was possible that the commander’s drinking had become terminal, ruining the morale of every soldier serving her. But even that notion rang false. What soldier of the Hust Legion did not know their commander’s weakness? And did they not by every conceivable measure strive to ensure the isolation of such failing? Nor would she lose such control: by it alone she found her necessary arrogance, as was common to the cleverest drunks.