The Bright Sword

by Lev Grossman

She struck Palomides as highly intelligent and dangerously bored, an unstable combination.

and power, like heat, was never destroyed, only redistributed. Somebody somewhere always had it.

There was nothing she could add that would make the inferno of his shame hotter. It was his soul that had been lost, and like so many who’d lost their souls, he had to insist the bargain was worth it and show contempt for those who still had theirs.

An empire that builds its walls in stone has stopped growing. And an empire that is not growing is dying.”

“One day you will see that it is a mistake to love an empire, or a throne, or a crown,