Comic, but only at the right distance.

We say that flowers return every spring, but that is a lie. It is true that the world is renewed. It is also true that that renewal comes at a price, for even if the...

Death, however clearly foretold, still came unexpectedly.

We did an evil thing, father.””What do you think war is? We’re men. Not boys swinging sticks at each other and pronouncing the evil wizard’s defeat. We do what duty and honor demand, and often...

It was only later, in her new, darker rooms above the banking house, that she realized it didn’t matter how loud she screamed or how violently she wept. Her parents would never come to her...

Court games aren’t fair. They don’t judge men by their worth, and they aren’t about what’s just. Guilty men can hold power their whole lives and be wept for when they pass. Innocent men can...

Waiting for a battle was the hardest part. Unless you got a dagger in your gut during the battle. Then that was hardest. Or you got through just fine and saw your men dead around...

And still, all specifics aside, it was a fascinating thought. When something can’t be known, when the particulars are lost forever, to look at the events that followed from it, that echoed it, and trace...

Every nation ends and every empire. Every baby born was going to die, given enough time. If being fated for destruction were enough to take the joy out of things, we’d slaughter children fresh from...

As we send our armsmen and sailors away to fight and die together; let there be peace between us. If there cannot be peace in the world, at least let it be welcome here.

It’s the problem in seeing too much of the world. In loving too much of it. You can only live in one place at a time. And eventually, you pick your spot, and the memories...

There’s ways you can trust an enemy you can’t always trust a friend. An enemy’s never going to betray your trust.

To lose everything is not the worst can happen.””It’s starting again, from nothing, with nothing,” Otah said.”Is exactly this,” Maj agreed, then a moment later. “Starting again, and doing better.

and doubt is the weapon that guards against it.

Toward the gods. Seems rude to think they couldn’t make a world better than this,