"If you are a bad person," says Valia, "there is no cause at all to risk your life to kill an evil man who oppresses people far away. To risk your life to kill your own oppressor, maybe, because even bad men are self-interested. To rob a bank, maybe. But to rise up with your friends to kill an Asmodean noble from far away - Asmodeus, where He succeeded, would teach not to do it. He would teach that you are too weak, and that caring for other people - or trusting them to fight alongside you - is contemptible. The riots in Westcrown may have been a very bad thing - probably were a very bad thing, if you are right - because they did not stand enough chance of success, and because we owed it to the Queen to check first if she's trying, but I do not think it is Evil that inspires people to risk everything when they learn that the convention is full of Evil nobles."

"No. It's emotion. It's fear and rage and hate. It's the thought their enemies will escape justice. It's not a reasoned decision.

"I suppose for a few - it's a lifeline thrown to men afraid of Hell that it will save their souls, if they're evil, and make it so they don't need to be afraid of Hell any more. That's what a some people were thinking when I talked to them, when they calmed down enough to look for reasons. But mostly they just went home when they did that."

"It's not - fear and rage and hate - I guess it is scary. But it's mostly - that someone has to do it and you're someone, and you feel very small and very big at the same time. You don't have to hate people to wish they didn't have the power to do whatever they want to thousands of other people."

"When they calmed down, they stopped and went home. When they didn't, they usually died, if they fought a lord. And they stole and killed and raped wherever they saw a target, some of them. It wasn't a calculated plan. It was that they'd been afraid their whole lives and they saw a way to get out of it by hurting the people they'd always hated and they took it."

"Will the Church of Abadar raise people from the dead, or only nobles?"

"They can't afford to raise most from the dead. They'll do it for the wealthy, who can pay them, but not the poor. Archmage Naima raises two people from Hell every day but I don't think she can do more than that."

Valia is still not crying but she's very, very pale. None of the things spinning around in her head now are questions. "I don't want them to be in trouble," she says eventually. "If they did these things because I told them to. That's on me, not on them."

"Pharasma gives them partial responsibility, not full. But if they were already evil -"

Then they'll be damned. Valia wants to wither away into a gust of wind on the distant seas. The room is suddenly too bright and too loud and it feels like all of the pieces are piling up in top of her, unbearable.

Except the greatest and most terrible secret of the world is that nothing is ever unbearable. You just - keep going.

Until the Queen has you executed for murdering hundreds of people. 

She does not generate any more questions. Or comments.

Feliu is going to quietly sing. He sings very well, and it's a song from the Acts and older than the Acts. Aroden wrote it, he thinks. About failure.

For they, all of them, worship a god who has failed, and knows what it is to fail.

Alexeara Cansellarion enters the prison.

"Feliu. Select Wain. Do you know anything about what's going to happen to you? I only just got to the city."

Valia did start crying, just a bit, during the song. She thinks she disguised it successfully. Her voice is steady now, at any rate. "Presumably the Queen is going to kill me because I got hundreds of people killed but she has not actually said anything yet. Feliu's friends thought I should come here, uh, in advance."

"Nothing but speculation, sir."

"I'm going to talk to the queen. She may feel that she has to execute you to restore order," or because she enjoys killing Iomedans "but I am going to try to convince her to be lenient. What would your plans be if you were pardoned?"

Valia blinks at him, baffled. 

"No - you should try to convince her not to kill the other people. Since they were only listening to me."

"I will try to convince her to not kill the people who were rioting, either, or at least not the ones who were genuinely inspired and not looking for an excuse... But I heard someone reprinted and edited your speech to make it more inflammatory. So it wasn't exactly you they were listening to."

"Oh. I didn't know that." Valia thinks she might actually be very angry about that, if there were space for any feelings.

...She looks awful. He reaches out and puts a hand on her shoulder and cures her of a lot of things that aren't applicable here, and also tiredness which is.

"What would you plan to do if pardoned?"

"...I don't know. I don't - I can't talk to people, there are so many things I don't know and some things I do know that are - different here - is there somewhere where it wouldn't matter, that I don't know how things work except in Pezzack - or I guess I could go home -" except she probably can't and she feels abruptly resentful of being made to even think about it. She'd been doing so well at not showing distress.

"Lastwall," he says immediately, "where they are right now slightly short on empowered clerics, and nobody is going to look to you as the sole source of the goddess' wisdom, and where you will find more experienced teachers... It would mean one fewer Iomedan at the convention, but I think it would be good for you... You might not be able to come back. Assuming I can even talk the queen down as far as exile."

"I don't really understand why this is your priority when I got hundreds of people killed but that sounds - good. I didn't want - I wasn't trying to - I thought that if there were still Asmodeans in power the Queen didn't want that -"

"The men you accused are not Asmodeans. Not anymore. I haven't known any of them long, but when I've met with them they seemed no more evil than a typical person raised in this country. One of the first things that the Archduke Narikopolus did after the war was to ask the church of Iomedae in Lastwall to send them priests who could teach them how to be good. If you don't trust my admittedly limited assessment of their characters, two of those lay priests came with to the convention and volunteered to spend their time advising you and Select Artigas, since neither of you have any formal instruction in Iomedae's teachings... I don't know if they'll be allowed to come speak to you here. Presumably if you're allowed to remain in Cheliax."

"They're all Evil - we did check that -"

"One who has done much evil in their life will usually take some time to recover from it spiritually, even after they have decided to do good instead. And I do not think it's likely that they have avoided any evil deeds since the end of the war. But they've renounced Asmodeus, or the queen would have removed them, and they are trying to do the right thing, or the church of Iomedae would not be helping them."

"Every person I've seen shine Evil was a priest of Asmodeus or a general in His service or Ibarra who is a Norgorber cultist who - wanted this to happen because it'd be funny - and so when I saw that all the same people the Thrunes put in charge were in charge and they were all still evil I thought that meant they were - all still people it was bad to have in power. I thought that was what evil meant, more or less.

I'm sorry. I know that fixes - none of it."