Chapter 38 : Fear Not

• 'They're so cruel,' Benjamin pondered. 'It's harmful to their humanity, but still they persist in it.'
• He had watched helplessly from the crowd as Kallida continued his dedicated character assassination. The conversation had moved from the Ambassador to the Kingsmen, then to the Armorials, and now to Caliphus. They met in a discreet contest of words as two men battling over a ship's rudder, the gentlest tap or smallest adjustment capable of redirecting the course of the conversation entirely.
• Kallida was, by this point, becoming visibly bothered. "Supposing that Caliphus was promised his descendant to sit upon the throne in Pyre as you have claimed and the Chronicles of the Kingsmen record. How can you explain the world as it now is? Stephan is dead and Casper, his son, is alive in exile. How is it that such a thing would be allowed under your beliefs in this mighty king and his divine power?"