This is good Paledoris, son of Palodaran of Arrowfell, the best minister among many. One not hobbled by inadequate interpretations and who, by focus, keeps my political heavens clear of those who have not earned the right to soar in them.

I’ve heard of kindness but never found myself behind its gate.

If there are stripes laid on me by Providence, they have become bonds, not that they bind me, but they bind me together: both to myself and to Providence by whose hand they came. And of that togetherness, I do not wish ever to escape. Where you see shackles I see sinews. And what you thought had scarred me had in truth all the better sealed me. These wounds I shall not cast off for they are the many stripes of my rank.

Sometimes a man needs to hear his own words, but in a friend’s voice.

The way you speak of courage, it goes down like medicine and honey,

She had a look that could deprive saints of their conscience, and dominate lesser men with a wink.

You are never well, full or fasting.

Your voice could pass for honeysuckle were it not for the sulphur.

You turn the blood to saltwater, a low-tide of courage pulled away by the moon.

You would not believe what the voice in my head tells me about you. Not who you are now, but who you’ve yet to become. That is why I am here. I am the trauma that will transform you into what you should be, but don’t have the courage to become on your own. I am the horror you are missing.