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I found him there not eight months after he died. Sigerson. As if anything could have kept me from him. How could he think I’d not follow? I knew his methods—who better? I considered endlessly how little he must have thought of me, and the thought became a pain in my gut that eclipsed the one in my heart.
I knew when I started out that I would find him or I would die. It mattered little to me which. I went mostly by private coach, or on horseback if my leg could stand it. It was slower than train, but more secluded, and it gave my rage time to kindle.
It was very late when I finally reached the monastery outside Lhasa. His chamber was exactly where my guide had predicted; I slipped in unseen. A single candle cast a circle of light on the bare stone floor. Beside the bed was a pool of ruddy fabric: he looked up from where he crouched, dwarfed by his monastic robe.
He looked up; his eyes widened and the breath punched out of him. His surprise fed my rage. I seized him. The robe slipped off his shoulder in the struggle. I wanted to bite him. Bruise him.
He was so thin. I held him so he could not see me break.