"Don't worry about it," he says.

"Well, for one thing I'd have to find room for all those people, but," he gestures at the little flying island he made for this conversation, "that's not so hard. The harder part is that anyone who can raise the dead can also make themselves... maybe not quite as impossible to kill as I am, but at least very, very difficult. So I can't necessarily just execute them, and I can hurt them a lot but that doesn't, actually, stop them from having power, it just gives them more reason to be angry with me. People who have power and are angry with me cause a lot of trouble—I can't remember if this made it into the history books, but that's how we lost the old capital. Someone tried to kill me, it didn't work, he decided the answer was to try harder, and most of the city was gone by the time I finally took him down. I guess with a few dozen people around to share the work of bringing them all back, that's less of a problem, but I still don't like it."

She looks thoughtful, shifts as though about to speak, hesitates—

He waits.

"...you won't mind if I'm rude again, will you?"

"Go right ahead. I actively value people who are willing to be rude to me."

She smiles slightly. "Well, if you'll excuse me for saying so, it seems very strange for you to be so concerned with the lives of your people given what you do to some of them."

"Yeah, I guess it does," he agrees. "But here I am, feeling that way. I like my empire. I want its people to be happy and healthy and prosperous and not have to fear sudden death by careless rebel. Might even be nice if they didn't have to fear death at all, though I'm still not sure I can pull that off—where are you going to get that many volunteers? And it's an unfortunate truth that the kind of person who'd take Life and Death to help bring the dead back to life and the kind of person who'd blow up a city trying to get to me are all too often the same kind."

"...if you'll excuse me for saying so," she says, "if you care so much about the health and happiness of your subjects, why keep torturing them, especially when people are blowing up cities trying to stop you?"

He shrugs. "I do care, but I care about other things more."

She's hesitating again.

"Yes?"

A little nervously, she shakes her head.

"...you still don't have to say, but—I'd like to be someone you don't have to be afraid to say things to. If I scare you out of speaking your mind that's a loss for me."

"That's good of you to say, but—forgive me—cold comfort if I tell you something you don't like hearing and you toss me off the edge of the island about it."

"As much Sea as you've got, would that even hurt?" he wonders, smiling, then shakes his head. "No, no, I know what you mean. But—that's the thing, you see. If you tell me something I don't like hearing because you trusted that you'd survive saying it, then... I have something valuable, there. I have someone who's willing to speak frankly to me, and I have—whatever it was about me that led them to expect that. And if I kill you I lose both. If I kill you I'm saying that whatever you just told me, I hated hearing it so much that I'm willing to destroy, not just you as a person who's willing to talk to me, but my right to claim that I'm safe to talk to. And there's very little that's worth that. Honestly, if you told me you were thinking of going home and organizing a rebellion, I'd be thrilled because maybe I could have a reasonable conversation with you about why you wanted that and whether I could address your concerns some other way."

"Well, I'm not thinking of going home and organizing a rebellion," she says, half-smiling. "Sorry to disappoint. Although if I were, I don't really think you could address my concerns that easily."

"That's fair. Just—I really do want to be safe to talk to."

"Where does the throwing people off roofs fit into this?" she wonders.

"I lose my temper sometimes. Less often than I used to. And—it would be very fair to not want to be thrown off the edge of the island even if I apologized afterward, but for what it's worth, I would apologize. Doing something like that after making so much noise about how safe it is to tell me things would be stupid and impulsive and short-sighted, and sometimes I am stupid and impulsive and short-sighted, but that doesn't mean I like to be."

"I suppose that's fair of you."

She's quiet for a moment, thinking.

"...earlier you reminded me that I could be dead or enslaved at your whim, even though you said you don't like it when people are too aware of that. Why?"

"...because it's true," he says. "Because—I appreciate it when people aren't afraid of me, but not when it's just because it hasn't occurred to them that I might hurt them. If all that stands between someone and fearing me is their ignorance of how dangerous I am then it's correct for them to fear me no matter how little I like it."

"Hmm," she says. "So—you want me to know exactly what sort of a man my Emperor is, and decide for myself how afraid I should be of that?"

"Yes, exactly."

"Hmm."

Another thoughtful pause.

"...suppose I had a clever idea for how to make your empire happier and more prosperous," she says. "Very much more. But it was—something like the trick with raising the dead, something that leaves a lot of people with a lot of power they could make trouble with. Something that could leave people with the power to stop you from murdering and enslaving them at your whim. What is it worth to you, to be someone I could talk to about a thing like that without being afraid you'll kill me to stop me from trying it?"

"...how hypothetical is that example? No, don't answer that," he says, studying her face. "It would be worth... a lot. To be clear, I would kill you to stop you from trying it if I thought your clever idea was going to be an enormous disaster that would set the world on fire and I couldn't convince you to leave it alone. But I'd try very hard to convince you first. If, I don't know, if you'd somehow discovered a way to let anyone self-dedicate at any time no matter how old they are—first of all, it'd be worth a lot to me to know that, to be the sort of person you could safely talk to about it so you could tell me instead of running off and starting a rebellion. I'd spend a lot of time telling you what a disaster you were sitting on and trying to figure out if there was some way to make it work safely before I gave up and resorted to murder. And if it was something less catastrophic than that... depending on the details, I might not even stop you. Depending on the details I might help."