"I know. It was - terribly unjust of us, to put you in the position you were in, without any help or advice, without anyone who would know that sometimes a man who is trying to do good, who is succeeding in doing good, may still shine with the evils of their past, without anyone who's seen the world outside of Asmodean Cheliax - I'm sorry. It was my mistake, among others."

"You - didn't put me in the position? Did you? The summons said the Queen did. If it was you I - would've asked you for advice, probably, if I'd known that -"

"It was the queen and her companions who decided that the convention should seat ten Chelish Iomedan Select, if they could be found, but it was the church's decision - and my decision, and the decision of all the individual Iomedans who knew about the situation - not to prioritize getting you advice and advisors."

There've never been advisors, is the thing. There's never been anyone who has the answer. There's just the problems, and you can try to fix them or not. If you wait to be sure you'll wait too long and be dead and - 

- and if you don't wait and move while you missed something important then hundreds of people will be dead. Apparently. 

"I am confused about why, if the Evil Thrune-appointed nobles are actually suited to rule over people and everybody checked already and knew that, no one said that in response to the speech instead of saying that it is wrong to rebel against Asmodeus."

"Archduchess Bainilus spoke from her own experience, which was different from yours but still quite limited. Many people in the room knew as little or less about the Menadorians as you did. Some were probably afraid to contradict a Select of Iomedae. And I - was caught off-guard and was too slow to the podium."

And then Valia's conversation with the Archduchess got heated and someone suggested everyone discuss tax policy to calm down and -

"Oh. 

I don't really think that making lots of people come to Westcrown and then telling them to give speeches and then making who responds to the speeches depend on how fast they are to get to the front of the room and then killing them if the speeches are wrong is a very good way to do government but I don't actually know what the other options are." 

"It's one of the things the Archmage Cotonnet and I disagree on! I do hope that we'll be able to avoid you being executed. In Andoran members of the People's Council can't be prosecuted for anything they say on the floor, which seems like an important innovation that has done them good."

"I followed all the laws about what you're allowed to say. I consulted -" she doesn't want to name them - "some people who could read all the royal decrees for it and we changed some things so it was more clearly allowed. It just - doesn't matter, because when you say something that causes a big stir and makes a very important person really angry they change the rules and kill you. It's what happened in Pezzack, too."

"Oh. That's really good to know. That you followed all the laws, that is - It does matter. It matters to me and to the church and probably to the queen and the archmages."

"I think it usually only matters most of the time and not if there's a rebellion. And - I don't even think that's unfair, really. A lot of people are dead. It doesn't help those people any if we were careful to make sure the speech didn't have any lists of names and didn't say that people should commit crimes just that they probably would if their rulers were Evil."

"It doesn't help those people, no. It also wouldn't help them to have you executed for what you said."

"....governments like killing people to scare all of the other people, not just to make them stop whatever they're doing. They'll kill people even if it'd be easy to make them stop, because they'd rather scare them."

"That's - true more often than I would like, but it's not true everywhere. And Cheliax under Hell was far more eager to kill its people than most governments."

"Even Lastwall would kill someone if they got hundreds of other people killed, though, right, because it's very important to make people not do that."

"It depends on how and why they got hundreds of other people killed, and what they thought about it afterward. I've known men in Lastwall who have made mistakes that bad, and none of them were executed for it."

"Well, I don't wish I was born in Lastwall, because it doesn't sound like its government needed any rebelling against." Her moods have swung around again to land on 'strangely deflated'. "I think I don't want to think about this, unless you think it's important, as it's easier to be all right with being about to die than with not being sure. Feliu didn't think there was anything I could do that was useful."

"I understand. I'm going to try to talk to the queen now. I will let you know if you should be expecting execution or something else once I know that with more certainty."

Goddess go with you, she wants to say, but it kind of feels like she shouldn't. She nods.