What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier, #1)

by T. Kingfisher

I am delighted by obscure passions, no matter how unusual. During the war, I was once holed up in a shepherd’s cottage, listening for the enemy to come up the hillside, when the shepherd launched into an impassioned diatribe on the finer points of sheep breeding that rivaled any sermon I have ever heard in my life. By the end, I was nodding along and willing to launch a crusade against all weak, overbred flocks, prone to scours and fly-strike, crowding out the honest sheep of the world.

His voice had that light veneer of humor that we all get, because if we don’t pretend we’re laughing, we might have to admit just how broken we are.