How could she compare the lives lost? One genocide against another—how did they balance on the scale of justice? And who was she, to imagine that she could make that comparison?

For all her combat training, Rin had never thought about what it would be like to actually take someone’s life. To sever an artery, not just feign doing so

But my first obligation is not to the unborn people of this country's future, but the people who are suffering now, who pass their days in fear because of the war that you have brought to their doorstep.

If they couldn't capture the Autumn Palace, at least they had a good chance of blowing it up.

She had a weapon now. She wasn't defenseless against him. She'd never been defenseless. She had just never thought to look.

The Empress called the Twelve Warlords to her throne at Sinegard and deliberated for seventy-two hours. On the sixth day, the Empress formally replied that Ryohai could go fuck himself.