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

by Robert Jackson Bennett

“Being as axioms are usually as socially cognizant as a wet fucking brick, yes,” she said. “It is quite damned odd.”

“Good!” she said. “I appreciate it when you throw rocks at my ideas, Din. Keeps me from going too far up my own ass. Proceed.”

I was saved only by a sharp knock at the door. Ana waved a hand and said, “Go. Let us see what new madness this realm drops at my doorstep.”

“Did you?” I asked. “Did I what?” “Run far enough.”

“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. The duty of the Iudex is not to boldly vanquish it but to manage it. We keep the stain from spreading, yes, but it is never gone. Yet this job is perhaps the most important in all the Iyalets, for without it, well…the Empire would come to look much like Yarrow, where the powerful and the cruel prevail without check. And tell me—does that realm look capable of fighting off a leviathan?”

“You shall soon receive two revelations, Dinios Kol! One very obvious, and one very secret. Together, they shall change the course of your life.”

To serve is a tremendously humbling thing. How easy it is to mistake glory and fame for duty! But duty is thankless, invisible, forgettable—but oh, so very necessary.”

“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.”