A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2)

by Sabaa Tahir

“I miss you.” I hope she hears what I’m truly saying. I love you. I’m sorry. I wish I could fix it. “I’ll always miss you. Even when I’m a ghost.”

I give him his solitude. Few people want witnesses to their pain, and grief is the worst pain of all.

If the storm outside had a voice, it would be hers, gelid, deathly, and utterly unfeeling.

Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body’s instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that’s left is anger and strength.

“You gave me a name,” he says. “I want to live to hear it on the lips of others. Rise.”

Is this what my friends felt in the moment of death? Were they also consumed by this futile rage, made more insulting because it meant nothing? Because, in the end, Death would take his due, and nothing could stop him?