Elantris (Elantris, #1)

by Brandon Sanderson

“for though I had more contact with the man Hrathen than most of you, I did not know him. I always assumed that I could come to understand a man through being his enemy, and I thought that I understood Hrathen—his sense of duty, his powerful will, and his determination to save us from ourselves. “I did not see his internal conflict. I could not know the man whose heart eventually drove him to reject all that he had once believed in the name of what he knew was right. I never knew the Hrathen who placed the lives of others ahead of his own ambition. These things were hidden, but in the end they are what proved most important to him. “When you remember this man, think not of an enemy. Think of a man who longed to protect Arelon and its people. Think of the man he became, the hero who saved your king. My husband and I would have been killed by the monster of Dakhor, had Hrathen not arrived to protect us. “Most important, remember Hrathen as the one who gave the vital warning that saved Teod’s fleets. If the armada had burned, then be assured that Teod wouldn’t have been the only country to suffer. Wyrn’s armies would have fallen on Arelon, Elantris or no Elantris, and you all would be fighting for survival at this moment—if, that is, you were even still alive.”