“But I had been a fool not to understand. Little wonder my father had wasted away, considering what had been taken from him. I understood that now. If I caught light as he once had, if I burnt and then faded; if I became ashes and soot, the dust in the air; then certainly, I would be as he was. I would be the dirt beneath another’s boot. It was only natural to fear such a fate. But I was wrong to think I could ever avoid it, once Richard came.”
