Of Empires and Dust (The Bound and The Broken, #4)

by Ryan Cahill

“Nothing is ever like the stories. If the stories told the truth, people would never pick up swords.”

It was a horrible thing to share – loss. But in a way, there was nothing else in the world that bound people together more closely.

There was no greater act of decency than giving someone your time. Time was precious and the only resource in the world that was truly finite. He cherished it.

“What is the point of tearing something down if what we build in its place is no better?”

be. Embrace them, let them fill you with longing. Let them fuel you. We cannot wait for our destinies to unfold. We must forge them ourselves.”

“No soul is incorruptible. Good and evil are words created so that our minds might grasp, in its most simplistic form, the concept of what is right and what is wrong. But the words themselves serve no purpose. For boiling down right and wrong into such basic forms is not possible in the living world, only in theory.”

We are flawed, all of us, but I suppose it is not the existence of flaws that destroys us but our willingness to bow to them.

“Let’s assume it’s not a coincidence.” “You know what they say about assuming,” Dann chimed in. “Dann.” Erik gave Dann a flat stare. “If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to kill you – slowly, with a spoon.” Dann closed his mouth, turning his lips inwards and leaning back.

“Every soul has a thousand lives not lived, born of a thousand choices not made and a thousand paths not walked, Eltoar. We must not dwell on those other lives. They are ghosts, and if we let them, they will haunt us. Look forward. There are more choices to make, more paths to walk, more life to live.”

“Fear exists for the sole purpose of being overcome.”

It was a strange irony that the greatest of hopes always landed on the youngest of shoulders.

Knowing your past allowed you to appreciate the gifts you’d been given,

“For those we have lost, and for those we refuse to lose. We will give them fire and fury!”

“It’s funny how one moment, one single event, can change so much.

“We never truly lose the ones we love. They stay with us in everything we do. Those who affect us so deeply leave imprints that cannot be removed. We are who we are because of who we’ve loved and who we’ve lost – those things we do not decide. So never be afraid. Live boldly, love fiercely, and forgive quickly. Life is too short for anything else.”

This world, this life, is nothing but the sum of our experiences and those we share them with. What happens in the end means little. What matters are the things we do along the way. The only joy is the joy we create. The only hope is the hope we refuse to let go.

It is the moon that gives the stars permission to shine. Normally, Dann would have to ask Rist what in the gods that meant. But somehow he knew. It was the moon that dimmed the sun’s light, the moon that dared shine in the face of the greatest fire. The moon inspired the stars to become what they needed to be, to light the way.