“Yes, I love him. Enough to follow him anywhere.”

“I want him to kiss me, even though my heart squeezes with wrongness. I want to feel the victory of being desired by someone I once found desirable.”

“You faced him down like a seasoned warrior," he [Hector] says. "Only because I had your daggers at my back.”

“If I were an enemy, and I started bearing down on you like this," he draws his sword, stretches the tip towards me, takes a single step in my direction, "what would you do?" Possibilities race through my head. Should I look for a weapon? Dodge and come up behind his guard? Trip him? Insult his mother?”

“But none of it will be real. None of them will want me. My throne, yes. Prestige. A conquest. But not me.”

“I love you the way a drowning man loves air. And it would destroy me to have you just a little.”

“I will need more than this, O God. If you love me as Aneaxi said, please send me something to go on. Something soon.”