“Konstantin, dost thou recall the final utterance of that wretched little harlot ere we severed the fragile threads which bound her head to the rest? Aye, before we laid bare the viscera that quaked within her, she cast upon you a gaze suffused with sorrow, and like the forlorn creature she was, she murmured, ‘Emperor, thou hast forsaken me…’ The fall is upon us, Konstantin. No reprieve, no escape from this accursed fate. How long have we waged this harvest of death, Konstantin? A decade? Two and five? We are a thousandfold more wicked than the sins of my forebears, a thousandfold.”
