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

by Robert Jackson Bennett

He wishes to extort more money, more resources, more agreements from the Empire. Which means every day is a fucking temper tantrum with him!

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

though the Legion defends our Empire, it falls to us to keep an Empire worth defending.”

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.”

once she’d made one deal, they had enough to blackmail her into more service. Which makes sense. They often favor threats above gifts.” “They? Criminals, you mean?” “No.” She handed the coin back to me. “Kings, and those who rule with them. But perhaps there is little difference between the natures of such men and criminals.”

“If I could banish all the evils of the world, child, know I would do it. But it is not our purpose to wade into the affairs of other cultures and scold them into decency.”

my folk so eagerly cling to the poisoned relics of throne and chain. They would gladly die clinging to them and proclaim it salvation.”

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

“What does it mean,” he said, “when the line that once connected us to the inscrutable and ineffable instead coils about, forms a great loop—and then comes back to us?”

“I was not thinking of my people. My eyes are clear now. I was thinking of myself. 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.” She smiled at me again. “You know that, of course. Long have I heard it said that the Iudex is the most thankless of all imperial services—yet without it, all my labors here would have come to naught.”

like all of humanity, apparently—have a little blank spot in their heads that says, “Kings. What a good idea.” The idea is powerful, and seductive, and should not be underestimated. To be a civilization of any worth, however, means acknowledging the idea—and then condemning it as laughably, madly stupid.

if we are not instruments in service to one another, then we are nothing at all.