“Are we not all one flesh? One mind? A sword brings power. Knowledge brings coin. With either, one can make blood reckoned, can earn names. The only thing that differs between a noble man and a working man is that they have now, while the other does not have it yet. Such things can be taken. They are always taken.”

“Without shame, without conscience.”

“Duty and honor are oft enough realm only for those with security to afford them.”

“Madness is a regenerating thing. Like a phoenix, when one strand dies, another burns anew.”

“All men were tools, as she saw it. Dangerous tools, when roused, but that was why one took care in efforts of control. It all came back to leverage. It wasn’t enough to ask a man if he would kill his brother. One had to make him see the consequences if he did not. Then one could only ask, which would he choose: brother or daughter? For all that kin might mean, most would choose the daughter.”

“The simple truth? History was never simply history. If it was anything it was another collar—another means to control.”

“Everything burned, everyone lied, and no one paid for it but the ones in the muck.”

“Everyone was trying to forget something, but they could never seem to find the way to do it. All they ever seemed to do was make it worse. Such quiet madness, the masses led.”

“Say what you will, dear sister, we do what we do for the promise of our youth. Yet it is always they who scar beneath the points of daggers.”

“Are we not all one flesh? One mind? A sword brings power. Knowledge brings coin. With either, one can make blood reckoned, can earn names. The only thing that differs between a noble man and a working man is that they have now, while the other does not have it yet. Such things can be taken. They are always taken.”

“Logic kills. Faith burns. Better to be the one with the torch than the one on the pyre.”