[...]

Is that meant to be a joke? I don't take very well to mockery, Your Majesty.

[Even after so long on the islands, Ardyn still had no ability to comprehend something as impossible as 'compassion without an ulterior motive'.]

If such a thing existed, it's long since ceased to. It no longer matters. [Even if, in more recent days, part of him had almost begun to want it to.] That healer died in darkness, and this is all that remains.