#& it must be scary to see a devout follower so thoroughly betrayed as that idk. But also to see your unworshipping self so clearly used as

[child-of-hurin]

“And the main house [of the Kallicertes estate]?” “Burn it.” (...) “Tear the buildings to the ground,” said Irene. “Cut down every tree, grub up every living thing. There is to be no stone unturned. And when you’re done, pile the wood into whatever remains of the house, and then I want it to burn. I want it to burn for days.” (...) “Relius,” she said, calling her adviser back from the doorway. She’d been staring out the window so long, he’d quietly excused himself. “There’s a bank of coleus along the east side of the garden.” “Yes, my queen?” “Leave it untouched.”

— "Burning Down the House of Kallicertes" in Moira's Pen (2022)

QoA (pre-RotT?) Irene is so conscious of her own contempt to the notion of worship — she calls what she gives the New Gods "lip service," and once the presence of the Old Gods is revealed to her, instead of anything akin to awe, what she develops towards them is a sense of... resentment? Mistrust? Presumably due to their betrayal of Eugenides, whose devotion she witnesses firsthand in her prison*

This passage of the short story is so striking — her destruction of the actual, physical house of Kallicertes is explicitly motivated by personal revenge; it happens by decree, by the power of her word...and then, just as personally motivated, this command to spare the coleus plants that were her only allies. This expression of gratitude, like the expression of anger that preceded it, is so unpragmatic and sentimental and final — there's at the same time a feeling of humane and of divine in it...I just love it.