Everything Varius had ever been taught, and the legal intuition working in him like instinct, were all resisting this entire chain of argument.
In the classics he had studied, order came from the grant of those above, and authority came from the endorsement of the sacred.
If power could be lent out and taken back, then law would lose its foundation, loyalty would degenerate into transaction, and the whole world would be left with nothing but naked calculation.
This was sophistry—at least it had always been so throughout his life thus far.
Varius forced himself to calm down, pushing his emotions back into the depths of his heart, just as he did in the Imperial Court.
He rapidly sifted through those familiar arguments in his mind, trying to find a flaw sharp enough to pierce this entire system.
A few breaths later, his train of thought suddenly halted.
Not because he fully agreed, but because he had finally grasped a seam he could use to refute it.
