If people don’t leave a hole in your life when they are gone, Consuela, they were never in your life at all. - Michael F. Flynn

I know my equations are true," she mused aloud. "I need to know if they are fact.

Much as I would tend my manor in peace, peace needs the consent of all, while one alone may raise a war. I swore an oath to protect the defenseless and punish peace-breakers, and that includes peace-breaking Herrenfolk. Your priests say to forgive your enemy, and that is well, or revenge follows revenge until eternity. But between a man who will stop at nothing and one who will hesitate at anything, the advantage is generally to the former. The pagans had right, too. It is a false peace to be overforgiving. Your enemy may read forbearance as weakness and so be drawn to strike.

He read the document a second time, but the words had not changed.