"Had a falling out with someone special, did you?" It's a dispassionate observation. If the wizard (had the hero ever learned his name? Had he ever learned the hero's? Unclear. Irrelevant.) ever had someone special of his own, it's clearly not something that affects the things he says.

"You were a good rival, you know," he says, almost conversationally, after a long pause. "Clever. It seems such a waste for you to just rot away down here."

He glances around at the ice crawling up the walls.

"Well, in these conditions you wouldn't rot. You'd freeze to death, most likely," he amends. "Still a waste, either way."