These warriors of the Sacred Band were inscrutable; they loved their war and death and picking through the bones of time to sort out right from wrong, good from bad, holy from profane, honor from dishonor.

In every age he had ever studied, doomsayers abounded. No millennium is attractive to the man immured in it; enough prophecies have been made in antiquity that one who desires, in any age, to take the position that apocalypse is at hand can easily defend it. He would not join that dour order; he would not worry about anything but Tempus, and the matter awaiting his attention.

Tempus would be protected, better shielded from whatever the Stepson thought threatening, if love could heal and save.

Revenge is fruitless.

Gods and politics are the tools with which the godless and unprincipled manipulate the gullible.

When you give death, you give of your own life - every time.

All gods are tricksters, and war gods worst of any.