And I thought to myself, even as the grief hollowed and swallowed what was left of my heart, Thank the gods. Thank the gods he’s gone. For what could contain me now? Who would hold me as wholly as he? There was no one in the world who knew me as he knew me, and I could swear he took a part of me with him when he left, some beautiful part that I will never see again. What remains of this woman I call my self? Something cold, perhaps, and feral as moonlight.
I find myself walking in the dark, a bit farther with each passing night, and I have learned to step as lightly as any strange animal who wanders beyond the reach of the sun. Eventually, I will forget what was taken from me, and I will leave myself behind just as he did. I will drop at last this horrid mantle of humanity and become the world in all its namelessness. Oh, how I hope. And oh, how I fear.
—Sarine Alivsa of Seraffe
