Heir of Novron (The Riyria Revelations, #5-6)

by Michael J. Sullivan

This surprised him at first, but home, he realized, was not so much a place as an idea that, like everything else, grew and blossomed along with the person. Being away gave him a new insight that the abbey was no longer his home—he carried his home with him now, and his family was not just a handful of monks.

“You need to read this tonight. The whole thing. Can you do that?” “Just the one?” Hadrian smiled. “I knew I could count on you.” “What is it?” “Edmund Hall’s journal.” “Oh my!” “Exactly. And tomorrow you can tell me all about it on the road. It will help to pass the time.” “Road—tomorrow?” Myron asked. “Am I going back to the abbey?” “Better—you’re going to be a hero.”

“While the idea of leaving is at first impossible to contemplate, the question you need to ask is, how would they feel knowing that you are torturing yourself because of them? Is this what they would want? Is that what you would want them to do if the situation was reversed? If you love them, you need to let go of your pain and live your life. To do otherwise is a selfish cruelty.”

‘When you expect nothing from the world—not the light of the sun, the wet of water, nor the air to breathe—everything is a wonder and every moment a gift.’ ” “And

‘More valuable than gold, more precious than life, is mercy bestowed upon he who hast not known its soft kiss’—Girard Hily, Proverbs of the Soul.”

If you don’t abandon hope on pleasant days, why do so on those that begin poorly?”

“What is the advantage of fear, or the benefit of regret, or the bonus of granting misery a foothold even if death is embracing you? My old abbot used to say, ‘Life is only precious if you wish it to be.’ I look at it like the last bite of a wonderful meal—do you enjoy it, or does the knowledge that there is no more to follow make it so bitter that you would ruin the experience?”