Paladin of Souls (World of the Five Gods, #2)

by Lois McMaster Bujold

a great and strange curse had been laid upon the royal house of Chalion. And that I had brought my children into it, unknowing. Not told, not warned.”

The ethics of child-bearing in a fraught world? Question A theme of Greensleeves, by Sigrid Nunez: https://www.facebook.com/penn.hackney/posts/pfbid0K466kzqit5HKkz4UGhZm8JTEPr3quihT7Ea14xLWsQLr54PVMM7ELFVwNaPnAv8Fl

For a time, Ias and dy Lutez had left her in that terror, alone, uncomforted. It had seemed then, and still seemed now, a greater betrayal than any trivial sweaty graspings under the sheets could ever be.

I spoke to the Mother face-to-face, as close as I am to you now.”

we—dy Lutez, and Ias, and I—planned a perilous ritual to break the curse, to send it back to the gods from whom it had once been spilled.

I, in my anxiety and fear, made a mistake, a great and willful mistake, and dy Lutez died

Question - why is she to blame? And if not, why does she think so?

That the world should think me, falsely, an adulteress, seemed far less hideous than that it should know me truly a murderess.

But Ias died of grief thereafter, deserting me, leaving me to wail in the ashes of the disaster, mind-fogged and accursed still.”

“Nineteen when it began. Twenty-two when it ended.”

“Ias had dy Lutez.” “Whom did you have, lady?”

Three years ago, by the labor and sacrifice of others, I was released from my long bondage.

In bondage for 15 years? Question 19 y.o. at the beginning, 22 at the death of dy Lutez. + 15 = 37; this story opens 3 years later, when she’s 40.

the silence of my life in Valenda. Unbearable silence.

One-half my life lies behind me, and half of that stolen from me by Fonsa’s great curse.

Who was the first? Question

Simile luscious

Haha

So long as it does not return to Ista dy Chalion.

“I would throw myself off a precipice first, except that I would land in the arms of the gods, Whom I do not wish to see again.

“The world is ashes and the gods are a horror.

Haha

Pejar

Foix

the concussion from the demon’s passage that reverberated in her bones.

Simile

But now it possesses a very banquet of words and wits. How quickly would it start its feast?

“Foix can resist. If he chooses. An inexperienced demon needs time to grow, to learn.” To dig in, Ista’s thought supplied.

“The provincial temple at Maradi

Her sense of the demon’s presence, briefly so searing, was muted again.

Simile extended

Lord dy Cazaril

just around some strange corner of perception.

Simile extended

And then she wondered what the demon saw when it looked at Ista.

Haha. And I’ve just noticed how trusting everyone is to send two women out into the wild with 14 men.

if the demon became less bearlike, it could only be because it was growing more Foix-like?

Haha

Learned Tovia’s

I stole your pilgrimage, Royina. I thought the god was telling me to.”

his peculiar convictions about her spiritual gifts, back in Casilchas, had come from a more direct source than old gossip.

“I am overtaken by a column of men, Roknari soldiers, Quadrene heretics.

they slew me in a different cruel way each night.” His voice slowed in doubt. “They always started with the thumbs, though.”

Ewww cruel indeed

You cannot push back the darkness with reason. You have to use fire.

Where had that thought come from?

“What he has gained by accident, some sinful or shortsighted or desperate men actually seek by design.

“Who ends up in charge, then?” He cleared his throat. “Almost always the demon.

“But where are they coming from? What rip in hell is leaking them back into the world in such sudden numbers?

The fifth god’s servants walk singly in the darkness, armed with our wits.”

Haha

Nice sentence

Foix’s bear-demon might be mischance, if chance it was.

Dy Cabon’s dreams were plain warnings, perhaps deceptive to heed, but perilous to ignore.