It is illegal for real people- [and there's so much scorn and repulsion pushed in to that word, into the implication of Grisha and the relationship with the rest of the world] to be slaves.

We are Grisha, and we have always been less.

[But not for long. Not for forever, because he will change the world, alone, because Alina ran away and who else but him? It has been his destiny since the day he was born, his mother telling him- over and over - how he was the one who would bring peace and freedom to their people.]

Oh, I am well aware of this. [Of how little their freedom is worth, how easily it could shift from uneasy truce to outright hostility. He had seen it, lived through it - through all of the different variations of 'peace'.] But until now, I have been powerless to change it.

Allow us a little self-indulgent retelling of our history. Speaking the truth could spark a rebellion and we would all be struck down, at least with this version of events, we will have time to find another way.

[Not that he will need it, when the orbs undo his regret.]

What would you have done, Chishiya? If faced with oppression on a scale that winds around the whole world, if it was your people in camps and strapped to slabs in laboratories? If it was your people burning?