I did not fight the office by fighting the office. I'd learned that much from Sable, and from the last assembly, and from twenty years of watching people flinch when I opened my mouth. You cannot stand up against a crown made of grief and love and a dead man's stopped hand; the moment you try, you are only the frightened founder again, telling a mourning city it may not have the one thing that would make it feel safe. So I didn't try. I built the other thing instead, and I brought them a yes.
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