"I was never anything but this," he said quietly. It was what I was trained to be, born to be, bred to be."
Carrick's eyes opened wide as Samandriel touched his forehead. Suddenly and without warning, a thousand memories crowded about him, drifting in front of his eyes as fast as dancing flames. One memory coalesced before his eyes, and for a moment he was back there, back in the days when his heart still beat and the sun warmed him. He saw an village on the edge of Sparta's city heard the bubbling from a fountain of sweet water, smelt incense drifting on the air of a high and sweet song drifting from a nearby temple.
He was a mortal child, no more than five years old, bare-footed and sturdy limbed, still too young to understand what would await him in the harshness of the agoge.
His mother was there, walking beside him, a basket of fruit form the market carried easily on her hip, her other hand enveloping his. Her touch was so soft, so warm.
If Carrick had been anyone but himself, he would have wept.