"Was it worth it?" she asks, bitterly, the Sun Summoner defeated but not diminished, flinching from the obsidian crown upon his head.

He thinks of his greatest mistake repaired, Ravka and the Grisha safe under his protection, decades at war come at last to an end.

"Yes," he says, and leaves her behind; if a sacrifice must be made for the benefit of the world, then let it be his own heart that makes it.

(Behold Aleksander, a hero after all.)