I'm not afraid, [ is his immediate, defensive reply, unthinking and instinctive. Admitting vulnerability still feels like handing someone a knife and baring his throat for the slitting.

But if there's anyone who he'd allow to hold a blade at his neck, it's Iorveth. He shrugs his shoulders, eyes drifting off to gaze, unfocused, at the tip of Iorveth's ear. It's clear that he's unused to spilling his most sensitive thoughts, and the act makes him feel restless, apprehensive. ]

This is a— gallery of my humiliation.

[ A selfish reason to be discomfited by thousands of starving prisoners, but his reason all the same. He'd comforted himself with the knowledge that he'd never have to see any of his victims again. That they'd be dead and gone, the evidence of what he'd been made to do erased from the world. The worst part isn't even that he'll have to look them in the face and remember what he did; it's that there are so many that he won't be able to remember. ]

I've spent the past two centuries trying to forget about them. Now...

[ He gestures vaguely toward the corridor. That speaks for itself, he thinks. ]