And we must, for the sake of Valdemar, give the Emperor what he wants.

“This just seems so . . . petty,” he said aloud, but Star had left, and there was no one there to hear.

“Petty” seemed to be what the Emperor reveled in.

Too much inbreeding, he thought sourly. Though that was not really the answer. The Emperor was a petty, cruel tyrant, a man who was the center of his own universe—but the reasons that he was the way he was? They could be complex.

Maybe the Emperor himself had been bullied and humiliated as a child. Maybe that was why he was the way he was. But Kordas knew well that however tragic an origin, or however brilliantly joyful, such events were only incubation organs for the person who emerged from them. Some terrible people could be redeemed if they weren’t too far gone. Some kind people could turn hate-filled and cruel. Some liars became the most honest, loyal friends possible. Or not. It really was up to them. Some saw the benefits of empathy and helpfulness, and gained the ecstasy of validation by love. Others, not so much, and just a few more weaponized their pasts. Whatever their origin story, an asshole was an asshole.

Or maybe he’s just a stupid, miserable excuse for a pile of shit on two legs who wants to be the cancer he is. I think I like that answer the best. Anything else makes me examine him, and examine myself, and look for pity for him, and that opens up last-moment “but he can change” redemption as an idea, and that’s just stupid. Expose your heart and a viper laughs after it strikes you dead. He’s had decades to change, with every expert available to him, and he chose bloody tyranny. I don’t want to pity him. I just want to be as far away from him as I can get. Let him die.

And then exhaustion took over and he slept again.

—

Delia once again marveled at how clever her sister was. Isla had taken the Doll’s advice with a grain of salt. They both knew very well how much sixty thousand of those little slips of paper were going to weigh, and how large the satchel that held them was going to be, and Isla probably didn’t want the messenger to think about that for one moment longer than he needed to. So as soon as the scrying ended, Isla sat in thought for a long moment before standing up. “Go down to the stable, and have Grim harness up one of the ponies to a pony-cart. I’ll be right there to give him further instructions.”

So Delia did just that, as Isla went off in another direction.