"I want what I deserve," Bellona answered easily, almost too much so. She might have been embarrassed, had she not been speaking to her brother: he could know the she mourned all that seemed to be lost to her now, even if she would not allow all and sundry to do so.

"What I deserve, not what society feels I'm owed based upon some sort of moral accounting that weighs the sins of others more heavily than my own virtues." Such a blank slate was, she expected, too much to hope for.