Tallanvor

“I’ve never had a man do that for me,” she continued. “Taringail saw me as a pawn, Thom as a beauty to be hunted and romanced, and Gareth as a queen to be served. But none of them made me their entire life, their heart. I think Thom and Gareth loved me, but as something to be held and cared for, then released. I didn’t think you’d ever let go.”
“I won’t,” Tallanvor said softly.
“You go to Tear. Yet you said you’d never leave.”
“My heart stays here,” he said. “I know well what it is to love from afar, Morgase. I’d done it for years before this fool’s trip began, and I will do it for years yet. My heart is a traitor. Perhaps some Trolloc will do me a favor and rip it free of my chest.”
“So bitter,” she whispered.
“You have made it amply clear that my attentions are not wanted. A queen and a simple guardsman. Pure foolishness.”
“A queen no longer,” she said.
“Not in name, Morgase. Just in mind.”
A leaf fell from above and struck the pool. With a lobed margin and verdant richness, it should have had a long life yet.
“Do you know the worst part of this?” Tallanvor asked. “It’s the hope. The hope I let myself feel. Traveling with you, protecting you, I thought maybe you would see. Maybe you would care.”

Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson. “Towers of Midnight.”