# Quote — Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

> Staring at me over the barrel of my gun, Akretenesh said, "Did you not just days ago lecture me about the sacred truce?"
>
> With my finger still through the trigger guard of the spent pistol, I lifted my left palm upward to the sky to see if lightning struck me down.
>
> When none did, I smiled again. "We will have to assume the gods are on my side."
>
> "I am an ambassador," Akretenesh warned me, anger bringing his confidence back. "You cannot shoot."
>
> "I don't mean to," I reassured him, still smiling. I adopted his soothing tones. "Indeed, you are the only man I won't shoot. But if I aimed at anyone else, it might give others a dangerously mistaken sense of their own safety." I raised my voice a trifle, thought it wasn't really necessary. "We will have another vote, Xorcheus."
>
> They elected me Sounis. It was unanimous.

- Author: [Megan Whalen Turner](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner.md)
- Book: [A Conspiracy of Kings](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Megan_Whalen_Turner#A_Conspiracy_of_Kings_(2010)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings/staring-at-me-over

## More from this book

> "Ten thousand!" I shouted at the walls, back in the room with the wooden shutters, now open so that anyone could hear me, on the porch or probably across the compound. "That arrogant bastard landed ten thousand men at Tas-Elisa. In my port! Mine!" When I was a child and playmates snatched my toys out of my hands, I tended to smile weakly and give in. Years later I was acting the way I should have as a child. Probably not the most mature behavior for a king, but I was still cursing as I swung around to find a delegation of barons in the doorway behind me. My father, Baron Comeneus, and the Baron Xorcheus among them.
>
> They thought it was how a king behaved.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings/ten-thousand-i-shouted.md)

> Eschewing ceremony, Eugenides said, "You shot their ambassador?"
>
> "You gave me the gun," protested Sounis.
>
> "I didn't mean for you to shoot an ambassador with it!" Eugenides told him.
>
> "Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray," murmured the magus.
>
> "You shut up!" said Gen, laughing.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings/eschewing-ceremony-eugenides.md)

> "In my experience, the more you know of the gods, the more you know what you cannot understand."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/megan-whalen-turner/a-conspiracy-of-kings/in-my-experience.md)