[They're far off into territory beyond both his practical experience as a necromancer and theological understanding as a mere zhrets. Souls were, on Nephele, and they departed on death to Navia and returned from it on rebirth. Occupying a body that already had its own soul wasn't something anyone had ever observed them to do.

Though what she describes doesn't sound all that alien to him. Isn't, really, from a certain angle.]

Ahh. As when you have found a very dear friend or lover--you did not know, before you met her, that she belonged in your life; but when she is gone, it is like missing a limb.

[He understands that.] I am sorry. To feel that loss for someone outside you, knowing that time and distance and death were always going to separate her from you--it seems it would be worse, when it is a part of you that you believed could not be stolen in that way.

[Uncertainty intensified every fear, every pain.]