[Ansburg had been very different from Ghislain. And it had been very, very different from the Gallows, thus its appeal to a young Simon's fledgling conscience. It had been the easiest sort of place to pretend that the first three years of his career never happened, could be erased tidily from the record if he only made up for it hard enough by being One Of The Good Ones. And even the good ones, from time to time, need to resort to force when they have no other options, don't they? Even the good ones need to let the mages under Harrowing age blend into a faceless mass.
Simon might well have been believed over Kostos, had the report not happened to be made to the very Knight-Captain with whom he'd started a shouting match the week before. But what is there to say about it that matters now, when the principle of the thing no longer applies? I might at least have been a Knight-Lieutenant now if it weren't for you, he could say, if he were the worst person in the entire Inquisition, but the words die mercifully long before they can reach his mouth.
(You wanted to speak with me, Ashlock? Meredith had said, her small frame seeming somehow to look down on him from a great height as he'd steeled himself to ask about the Tranquilizing of a mage whose Harrowing he'd overseen.
No, ser, he'd told her. I shouldn't have bothered you.)]
It's--
[The audacity of it would choke him if he tried to say "forgiven," and the humiliation of having to say such a thing to Kostos, of all the people in the world, would still prevent him. His concession can be victory enough for the justifiably self-righteous prick.]
no subject
Simon might well have been believed over Kostos, had the report not happened to be made to the very Knight-Captain with whom he'd started a shouting match the week before. But what is there to say about it that matters now, when the principle of the thing no longer applies? I might at least have been a Knight-Lieutenant now if it weren't for you, he could say, if he were the worst person in the entire Inquisition, but the words die mercifully long before they can reach his mouth.
(You wanted to speak with me, Ashlock? Meredith had said, her small frame seeming somehow to look down on him from a great height as he'd steeled himself to ask about the Tranquilizing of a mage whose Harrowing he'd overseen.
No, ser, he'd told her. I shouldn't have bothered you.)]
It's--
[The audacity of it would choke him if he tried to say "forgiven," and the humiliation of having to say such a thing to Kostos, of all the people in the world, would still prevent him. His concession can be victory enough for the justifiably self-righteous prick.]
That's fair.