Something awful is always going to happen, Arton. It's Sanctuary. You're a Stepson. Awful is a big part of your job.

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

Such hubris could only come from a man's mouth.

‎Old enough to kill means old enough to die

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

Always take responsibility for your past. It is your only collateral in life. Unless you despise yourself now, you cannot despise yourself then. Everything you did is a part of the process that brought you here. All your past is as alive and real as your so-called 'present.'

And Tempus thought then that nothing was more worthwhile than what was growing in this whitewashed barracks, where he has come to build a force such as men or gods have never seen - a force worth reckoning with, if you were of a mind. And something was of that mind. And something else opposed it. He should have expected that. Battle in the heavens, battle on the earth.