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608 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 20, 2017
“Everyone shush now, I’m about to be impressive.”
“When there is a war, it’s always the common people who paid the price.”
“What do you call a judge sitting on a throne? […] A fucking tyrant, that’s what.”
“From nothing we become men and women who write poems and wage wars and conceive of futures both wondrous and terrifying.”
“The problem with games of war is that they’re deceptive precisely because they presume that there are rules to be followed. But this is Tristia, after all, and corruption runs deep in the bone.”
“What if people didn’t need outdated heroics and idealism? What if they didn’t need Greatcoats at all? What if the one thing my country needed most to survive was a tyrant?”
“It comes down to a choice between Law and Justice –and they are two very different things, Falcio, despite how hard you’ve tried to unite them.”
“And so ends Tristia, once the very pinnacle of culture and civilization, dissipating in misery while the great Falcio val Mond rushes across the land in search of anyone in a long coat who happens to share his fanatical devotion to a dead King’s dream.”
“Ah, that’s the thing about people like you and me, Falcio: our curse is to keep living, when those we love best die”
“I tried to imagine what it must be like, to be young, beginning to see your own talents emerging, to see the world full of possibility –and yet have to set that aside, to prepare yourself for a marriage whose only purpose would be to ensure you never fully met your own potential. To consign yourself to be less than you could be in order to satisfy the machinations of old men.”
“My name is Falcio val Mond. I might just be the luckiest man who ever lived.”
"My name is Kest Murrowson, a magistrate of the Greatcoats." He paused for effect, before adding unnecessarily, "And I am the Queen's Shield."
"To answer your question, friend, my name is Brasti Goodbow, and I am the Queen's Jest."
"My name your Lordship, is Falcio val Mond." I am the First Cantor of the Greatcoats, also called the King's Heart."
"Fuck anyone who ever doubts the purpose of daring acts of heroism"
"Because. I. Will. Not. Allow. Them. To. Forget. It"
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Was this all I'd ever been? A reflection in the eyes of others? A man with no dreams of his own, who only tried to live up to the expectations of those he cared for?
"Gentlemen," I said to Kest and Brasti, "I'm of a mind to attempt something rather daring and heroic."
Brasti grinned. "I assume this preposterous venture of yours is doomed to fail?"
"Assuredly. But we're going to do it anyway. You know why?"
Kest had a broad smile, one I'd rarely seen before. "Because preposterous heroics are the only things we've ever been good at."
"Screams, shouts, whispers, laughter… the human voice is capable of a remarkable assortment of sounds when words fail us, when reasoned, ordered thoughts cease to mean anything in the face of a world turned upside down."
"The problem with games of war is that they’re deceptive precisely because they presume that there are rules to be followed.
But this is Tristia, after all, and corruption runs deep in the bone."
"How do you bring the rule of law back to a country where the most fundamental equation of justice amounts to the fact that even those who are right will always be overwhelmed by those of greater might?
You have to change the equation."
Dan Ha Vath Fallatu
There’s an art to taking a beating. Lying there on the ground as brutes of men punch and kick you into oblivion might not seem as complex a skill as wielding a sword, but trust me, it is. I’m a master at it.
Brasti jumped to his feet. “I have an idea.” No good has ever come from those four words coming out of that particular mouth. He waited patiently to be asked— almost a full second— then pointed at the deceased Margrave’s wedding barge. “We should become pirates!”
He caught my expression and hastily amended his suggestion. “I mean, good pirates, of course. Noble pirates.”
“‘ Noble pirates’?” Kest asked.
“How would that work, exactly?” I asked, having already forgotten my rule about Brasti and ideas.
Since my twentieth birthday, I’ve fought seventy-six judicial duels (not that I’m counting, Kest does that). I’ve been on the “vastly outnumbered” side of more than a dozen different battles, thwarted numerous assassinations and faced an uncountable number of other attempts on my life. The fact that I’m still here and the majority of my opponents aren’t should say something about my capacity for both survival and violence. And yet I swear there isn’t a single person in this damnable country who’s afraid of me.
“Gentlemen,” I said to Kest and Brasti, “I’m of a mind to attempt something rather daring and heroic.”
Brasti grinned. “I assume this preposterous venture of yours is doomed to fail?”
“Assuredly. But we’re going to do it anyway. You know why?”
Kest had a broad smile, one I’d rarely seen before. “Because preposterous heroics are the only things we’ve ever been good at.”
“It comes down to a choice between Law and Justice –and they are two very different things, Falcio, despite how hard you’ve tried to unite them.”
“Any man who uses the words ‘politics’ and ‘trust’ in the same sentence has disqualified himself from talking about either.”