“And yet that did not frighten her as it should have. She knew how many faces people possessed, one hidden beneath the other, good and monstrous, brave and cowardly, all of them true. She had learned young that a fine-bred brother could turn into a brute over nothing. Nothing. She had sat with lords and princes and kings, binding them to the vision of Emperor Aditya upon the throne. She had known the size and clout of their personal armies, the names of their wives, their greed and whispered sins—she had met them and learned them as one learns any stranger. She had learned them in person; pried them open and controlled them, and had still been aware that beneath all their carefully cataloged hungers and weaknesses likely lay a multitude of selves she would never see.”