Shards of Honour (Vorkosigan Saga, #1)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

she knelt by the grave for a few minutes making a more serious, less certain inward prayer for her dead. It seemed to fly upward and vanish in the void, echoless as a feather.

The disruptor trembled slightly in Gottyan’s hand, as he wavered on the edge of his decision. Cordelia, barely breathing, saw water standing in his eyes. One does not weep for the living, she thought, but for the dead; in that moment, while Vorkosigan still doubted, she knew he intended to fire.

“He’s been dying for the last eleven months. Can’t he die a little longer?”

“But I’ve always thought—tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune. Do you understand what I’m saying?” “No,” said Vortala. “Yes,” said Vorkosigan. “I’ve always felt that theists were more ruthless than atheists,” said Ezar Vorbarra.

“What did you say to the Emperor, about me?” He stirred beside her, and pulled the sheet tenderly up over her bare shoulder, tenting them together. “Hm? Oh, that.” He hesitated. “Ezar had been questioning me about you, in our argument about Escobar. Implied that you had affected my nerve, for the worse. I didn’t know then if I’d ever see you again. He wanted to know what I saw in you. I told him . . .” he paused again, and then continued almost shyly, “that you poured out honor like a fountain, all around you.” “That’s weird. I don’t feel full of honor, or anything else, except maybe confusion.” “Naturally not. Fountains keep nothing for themselves.”