178
" One night Tayven managed to engineer a visit to Ashalan without Helayna’s presence and seduced him. It was not a challenge. Ashalan; tired and hopeless, was sodden with romantic and melancholic thoughts. He spoke of an ancient legend, in which a Cossic king had taken as a lover a boy of a conquered Mewtish emperor, which had caused all manner of unpleasantness. Tayven was impatient with this. He’d lost all his romantic inclinations. He realized that he must help Ashalan recapture the man he’d once been. The rebels might not be able to win their war, but they could survive in the wilderness undetected, perhaps forever. For that, they needed strong leaders. Helayna was an inspiration to them, but they had a spiritual link to Ashalan. To the Cossics, he was the life of their land. If he withered and failed, so did they, and Tayven realized it was not in his personal interests for this to happen. He became Ashalan’s inspiration, and used every ancient legend he could think of, and several that he made up, to help drag Ashalan out of his pit of despair. He saw the blood come back into Ashalan’s eyes. His body became straighter, his limp less pronounced. "
― Storm Constantine , The Crown of Silence (The Chronicles of Magravandias, #2)