He hears Lan Zhan in the back of his mind, murmuring about the harm that will come to him if he continues on this path. The marks it will leave; the damage it will cause to both body and temperament.

"Yes." He fixes her with a hard look. "I do not keep it secret. And I do not wish to be healed."

(He thought he'd escaped this. Yet even here, in a place he thought of as refuge -- )