“This is what we are for, Alin,” the older guardsman said, turning to his companion. Adare had never heard anyone use Birch’s first name. She hadn’t even known it herself. “Our lives for hers. If she refuses this, there’s no saying what the zealots will do to her.”“There’s no saying what the zealots will do if she agrees,” Birch pointed out. “We can’t save her if we’re dead.”“That is a risk that the princess will have to assess for herself. Our duty is to serve.”“I thought service meant fighting,” Birch protested, but the anger had gone out of him. Resignation thinned his voice.“Sometimes, Alin,” Fulton replied, nodding. “And sometimes it means dying.”

“This is what we are for, Alin,” the older guardsman said, turning to his companion. Adare had never heard anyone use Birch’s first name. She hadn’t even known it herself. “Our lives for hers. If she refuses this, there’s no saying what the zealots will do to her.”“There’s no saying what the zealots will do if she agrees,” Birch pointed out. “We can’t save her if we’re dead.”“That is a risk that the princess will have to assess for herself. Our duty is to serve.”“I thought service meant fighting,” Birch protested, but the anger had gone out of him. Resignation thinned his voice.“Sometimes, Alin,” Fulton replied, nodding. “And sometimes it means dying.”

“This is what we are for, Alin,” the older guardsman said, turning to his companion. Adare had never heard anyone use Birch’s first name. She hadn’t even known it herself. “Our lives for hers. If she refuses this, there’s no saying what the zealots will do to her.”“There’s no saying what the zealots will do if she agrees,” Birch pointed out. “We can’t save her if we’re dead.”“That is a risk that the princess will have to assess for herself. Our duty is to serve.”“I thought service meant fighting,” Birch protested, but the anger had gone out of him. Resignation thinned his voice.“Sometimes, Alin,” Fulton replied, nodding. “And sometimes it means dying.”

“If you intend to heal the breach,” she went on, “as you claim. If you intend to abide by the treaty we have both signed, then I am the Emperor, Annur’s Emperor, and your Emperor, and you will address me properly.”“I’ve always found that those most insistent on their titles,” Moss replied, “are those least deserving of them.”

“Believe what you see with your eyes, trust what you hear with your ears; know what you feel with your flesh. The rest is dream and delusion.”

“Leadership isn't just about giving orders. A fool can give orders. A leader listens. He changes his mind. He acknowledges mistakes.”

“Oh for ’Shael’s sweet sake, girl, you think you can rule an empire without lying? You think your father didn’t lie? Or his father? Or any of your goldy-eyed great-great-founders of Annur? It’s built into the job. Bakers have flour, fishermen have nets, and leaders have lies.”

“Justice, as it turned out, was a lot harder than war. War was largely a series of technical questions, a matter of taking living human bodies and making them dead. There were infinite variations in the tactics and the strategy, of course, nuances in weaponry and technique, but the basic premise was bedrock: you’d done it right if you were alive at the end of the day, and the other poor fool was not.”

“The mind is a flame. Blow it out, or it will blind you.”