It is said that there are three reasons that a person will serve another in this world, and I've seen two of them in the faces of the men who follow me.
There is a man who will follow out of fear; he serves because he is afraid of what will be done to him if he does not serve. These men are simple to pick out in a crowd when I speak - all one needs to do is look for the eyes when I prophesy of what will come, and watch how they grow wide and terrified at the words. They cling to the flesh, to their souls, as though they will not crumble to dust someday whether I accept their lives or not - as though they believe that they will lose less by turning aside to me than they will by continuing on their way - and I know better.
The second man is like the first, and yet like the rare third; he serves not because of what he fears losing, but because of what he stands to gain. These too are simple enough to pick out of a crowd, in the moments of clarity before the spirits of the gods fall upon me. They gaze in awe at the power I have acquired - and not without a certain degree of hunger for the same.
But then there is a rarer kind of servitude, and a man who exemplifies it within my service. I have seen hunger in his eyes in the earliest hours before dawn, and I have seen those eyes terrified as he wonders if this time the Dark has driven me mad, but it is neither the terror nor the hunger that keeps him among our number. He has faced fear before, and spat in its face. He has been offered the only thing he wanted, and seen for himself that promises of reward often turn up empty.
Yet it is not desperation - a lack of alternative - that causes him to remain in my service. His reason is reflected in the warmth of his gaze when our eyes meet over the rim of a wineglass at dinner, and in the worshipful touch of his fingers upon my skin, even when there is nothing divine to be worshipped there.
John Hardin's reason for serving me is not difficult to recognize - and yet somehow, so much more difficult to acknowledge.