jake orion wikipedia

A moment of silence passed before Tarnas cleared his throat and began to speak. “That truly is an unforgivable crime. You are right to feel guilty, to hate yourself for the things you’ve done. That is what you are supposed to feel, and to admit it now means you are on the correct path. It means you are learning from your mistakes and want to do right. Whether or not you can ever truly make up for what you have done, you can still become a better man than you were before. You can become a man who helps instead of hurts, who strives to make the world a better place.”

After Cain’s fight, the seventh match proceeded without a hitch, and as always, Seraph stepped into the ring for the final battle of the round. Though his earlier wins had been desperate and narrow, the prince’s arrival brought a chorus of cheers from the audience. One might expect this noisy support to bolster his confidence and turn him back to how he was, but he remained humble, or perhaps ‘fearful’ would be a better word. Every win would plague him with doubts, doubts that he was really strong enough to have defeated his opponents. All of his accomplishments were surely due to plain luck, or maybe his enemies had been paid off to let him win.

Berholm exhaled. “Part of it is raising taxes on the various nobles, depending on their contributions and loyalty.”“Meaning they can either suck up to him or be bled of wealth.”