I had good intentions, Baru. Every time. I had sterilization quotas to meet, so I sterilized women with lots of aunts and uncles. I had to show I was tough on my own people, so I filled up the prisons with men I knew deserved it. I had famines to fight, so I built my own food supplies through corruption. “But it doesn’t matter now, does it? I sacrificed my soul for a better future that will never come. All my work just … ice sculpture in the spring. The Stakhieczi invade, and the first thing they conquer is all the good work I’ve ever done.”
