"Stop that," Sonia says, a little more sharply, a little more thickly; he hasn't angered her, but seems to have struck a nerve instead. Both her hands go to his, wrapping around them tightly. "You're wrong. Maybe in your world, where there isn't any war, it's easy to see it that way. But millions of people have died trying to do good here. Do you think their lives were worth just as little?"

She bites the inside of her cheek. Her grip tightens unconsciously around Byerly's hands. "Twenty-two Barrayarans died the day the Cetagandans came for me in Riverfall. I asked, when I got back. I couldn't count them at the time." But she'd had to know. After all of Tarn's taunting, she couldn't go without knowing. "Twenty-two. Half of them weren't even soldiers, just villagers -- just people. They all died trying to do good and -- and failing. Do you think their lives were worth so little, just because they failed at trying to keep me safe? At the very same thing you were trying to do?"