Written on the Dark

by Guy Gavriel Kay

Men and women live with a heart-deep uncertainty every morning when they wake. It is why they go to war, why they write poems, fall in and out of love, plan thefts on dark nights, or try to forestall them. Why they pray. Or refuse to pray. It is the uncertainty that shapes and defines our lives. The tears of the world, a longing for joy. Or even just safety. Just that.

De Vaux missed the constable more than he could ever say. Would ever say. He loved his children, he respected and admired his wife, and he was properly grateful to his parents, but Jean Montel had been the enduring love of his life, right up to the older man’s death. You couldn’t say things like that. People wouldn’t understand how soldiers could feel about their commander.

tbh, extremely funny to go from "he was the love of my life" to "that's just how it is sometimes with your superior!!! don't be weird about it, no homo!!"

Sometimes we retain the quiet moments that come in the midst of chaos, or after it. The city, my city, in the night. Our lives, written on the dark.

Back in the meadow, where so many had died, no one ever betrayed the deception fashioned to save the life of the Maiden. The helmet was removed from the girl wearing it when she was taken, and the armour. She had light-brown hair and blue eyes. The Anglcyn knew that these were the colours of Jeanette’s hair and eyes. This woman prayed without stopping from the time the enemy attacked them, and continued when she was seized, and then for as long as she could when she was burned to death on the pyre they raised. No one learned her name. Her name was Lysbet Guerin, from the hamlet of Cassaude near the Livraise. Brave beyond any words one might ever offer.

It is possible to love someone, even for years, and not know it. Or to hide from it, in denial, and then in a moment…know it, and not be afraid.