A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan, #2)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

“You know, you are not a stupid person, Din.” “Thank you, ma’am,” I said, pleased. “Or, rather, not an unusually stupid person.” “Thank you, ma’am,” I said, far less pleased.

“I feel akin to the disappointed maiden during her first night in the marital bed—the more I pull at what I find, the more I find to my liking! Let us begin, then.”

Goddamn autocrats. They really are hardly better than shit-stained children.”

I suspect you shall come to realize what many Iudexii eventually learn—that though the Legion defends our Empire, it falls to us to keep an Empire worth defending.”

But a prideful creature can talk themself into believing that every deed they do is legitimate. Thus, they both giddily and greedily spin their own doom.”

“This work can never satisfy, Din, for it can never finish. The dead cannot be restored. Vice and bribery will never be totally banished from the cantons. And the drop of corruption that lies within every society shall always persist.

“It is good to place oneself before the vast expanse of this world,” said Ana. “The ocean cannot tell the difference between a rich man and a poor one, nor one full of happiness, or despair. To those waves, all are so terribly small.”