It's as if he's another person when he and I are alone.
Those he works with, those he instructs in the fine arts of deceiving and killing for me, see him as cold, hard. Always polite, for he could be nothing less, and always quiet, but grim and stern and focused. He is certain of what they must do, and how they must do it. That is what they see of him - that, and a small measure of his bitterness towards our foes.
He did not always present himself this way, of course. There was a time when he first came to us, when we were more a family than a collection of rebels, that all those in our number saw him as only I still do - confused and weary and gentle.
He has hardened so quickly, I would think that perhaps this is how he is naturally inclined to be (an ironic foresight in his family name), and it was only that too much hardship had worn away at him when first we met. I would think this, if not for the way his face changes when it is only he and I, apart from the others. There is little of warmth or kindness in his eyes anymore, except for the times when he meets mine, more cold and hard than his could ever manage. For me he still softens and yields, and I do not need to read his heart to know that this is his true nature.
I recognize it for what it is - in his helplessness, he is trying to become what he most desires to be. He is trying to become me.
But the transformation does not suit him. When he is with the others, hiding behind this unconscious deception, he appears only to be an ordinary man. When we are alone, his brown eyes warming with every gaze, he is beautiful.
No man looks right in the skin of another.