A psycho, they called me. They were right. They were wrong. They couldn't come close to my fire. They couldn't touch my heart.

They were jet, those wings, as deep as the sky, as black as Eoduin's hair—no, blacker, for they were dull, unoiled. They gave off no sheen in the light, no gleam to the eye. They drank up the light and diminished it: they were wings of pure shadow.

A psycho, they called me. They were right. They were wrong. They couldn't come close to my fire. They couldn't touch my heart.

I thought you had forgotten me.” “I have spent my life remembering you.

Aeriel felt her heart grow troubled. "I know," she said. "I know that he is evil, but his beauty unmakes me. Every time he looks at me, I die.

He does not rule us. No one can rule us. No one can rule anyone who does not first agree to the ruling." She smiled a trace at Aeriel and patted the little camp dog, which was whining for more tidbits. "One must rule oneself.

Two years were all we had, love," she whispered, "and we squandered them.