Who misses what they have never, ever even imagined?

You've never really trusted him, though you don't understand why. Something about the fact that he's hidden all his life - which is hypocritical as hell after your ten years in Tirimo.

It's hard out here for a fantasy writer, after all; there's all these 'rules' I'm supposed to follow, or the Fantasy Police might come and make me do hard labor in the Cold Iron Mines.

With epic fantasy, there is a tendency for it to be quintessentially conservative in that its job is to restore what is perceived to be out of whack.

The way of the world isn't the strong devouring the weak, but the weak deceiving and poisoning and whispering in the ears of the strong until they become weak, too.

It is the lies he's telling her - as he has been, Nassun understands suddenly, her whole life - that really break her heart. He's said that he loves her, after all, but that obviously isn't true. He cannot love an orogene, and that is what she is. He cannot be an orogene's father, and that is why he constantly demands she be something other than what she is.