It's always been something roiling deep through them, this self-loathing. Residue from the poison dripped down their ears all their life, from Piotr's complex relationship with them, from Barrayar itself, and MIles' chosen escape from it. He'd so desperately needed an escape that he'd invented a whole persona to disappear into, and now? It's gone. Evaporated into the thin air from which it has sprung to begin with. That needler had been karmic justice in more ways than one.

"I went home," he starts to reply. "After all of it. After everything. Naismith was gone by then, and I knew it, but - " His turn to look away, towards the fireplace. "I realized that somewhere along the way I'd lost Lord Vorkosigan too."