The Briar Book of the Dead

by A.G. Slatter

Conscience, Sandor said, was the waking bell that tolled – and some folk were utterly deaf to it.

We learn more through sadness than we ever do through happiness. Happiness makes us heedless.’

I’m coming to the idea that forgiveness isn’t about a kindness. It’s a hard thing to do, not easy, not simple. That it’s a price as much as blood is for magic. Forgiveness has a cost.

Not all women – some didn’t want change, didn’t want the uncertainty that came with it. Liked having their lives run for them – it never occurred to them they weren’t being asked to give that up, just that some women didn’t want masters. Should be given the choice.

But they knew, each of them, that power corrupts, and when you feel like a god – or a need to be one – that’s the time to step back from whatever you’re doing.