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

by Robert Jackson Bennett

Together, they bring justice to the Empire.

*insert law & order noise*

“She said your face is so pretty, but she is worried it is like a small horse.” “What? She said what now?” “It is a local expression, and a depraved one at that—she means, she is worried she might crush it while riding it.” He shook his head and muttered, “Damned Yarrows…” I turned back to her. She was watching me with a greedy gleam in her eyes. “Can you take me away from here?” I asked. She grabbed me by the hand, and we left.

lolol what a pickup line

“Because you are a reasonably smart boy. 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.”

I felt myself coloring. “Her name is Sabudara?” Malo stared. “You…you did not even get that, Kol? By the titan’s taint, what kind of man are you? Some kind of fricatrat, making your rounds?”

lol poor Din, getting slutshamed. I appreciate that in the grand tradition of all proper Watsons, he's hot and as slutty as his social setting allows.

“Do you know, Din, that when I first considered you for this job, there was only one manner in which you were deficient. And it was that you weren’t hurt enough.” “Hurt?” “Yes. For the most passionate Iudex officers are the ones who’ve been harmed, you see. Those who have been wounded once and watched the wicked go unpunished. It puts a fire in them. Doesn’t make them good at what they do, necessarily, but it does make them…enthusiastic, let us say. Willing to suffer, and bear burdens others could not.”

“People worshipped them as gods once,” said Ghrelin quietly. “I think of that whenever I make this voyage.” The great, glimmering skin of the Shroud loomed ahead. My body was slick with sweat, my mouth thick and heavy. “And I cannot blame them,” Ghrelin continued. “These giant, inexplicable things, thundering ashore, bringing so much death and strangeness with them. That’s what faith and the divine is, isn’t it? A line stretching from little beings like us, to the ineffable, the incomprehensible.”

It had all been a…a story.” “What had?” asked Ana. “Kings.” Pyktis shuddered. “For so long I was told they were wondrous fathers, farsighted rulers touched by the divine. The natural rule of strength, of crown, of throne—a noble thing, unlike the Empire, so unnatural and invented. But when I looked upon my father, I saw they are just…men. Little men with muddy, ugly little minds, who fall to common corruptions just like anyone.” His face twisted. “Just like everyone in the Empire. Just like Thelenai.”

“Some…some words he said had the semblance of truth,” I admitted. She laughed bitterly. “And which words are those?” “That we are but tools. I make my body and mind an instrument for others and have no say in its use.” “You are a junior officer, Din,” said Ana, bemused, “a hypokratos. All such officers feel so. Indeed, many senior ones feel the same—as do many civilians, I suspect! What are we, if not instruments in service to one another? But…”