The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War, #2)

by Mark Lawrence

A stone had fallen into my comfortable existence at court, so large that the waves washed me to the ends of the earth, but perhaps on my return I would find it as before, unchanged and waiting to receive me. Much of what men do in later life is just throwing stones, albeit bigger stones into different ponds.

“Here.” I held out a silver crown between two fingers to take his mind off it. “You can have this coin, or you can have the most valuable piece of advice I own, something a wise man once told me and I’ve never shared.” Snorri looked around at that, taking in the two of us with a raised eyebrow. “Well?” I asked. Hennan furrowed his brow, staring at the coin, then at me, then at the coin. “I’ll . . .” He reached out, then pulled his

hand back. “I’ll . . . the advice.” He blurted it out as if the words pained him. I nodded sagely. “Always take the money.” Hennan looked at me uncomprehending as I stood, pocketing the coin and pulling my blanket tight. Snorri snorted. “Wait . . . what?” Hennan’s confusion giving way to anger. Snorri led the way and I followed. “Always take the money, kid. Bankable advice, that.”

Great emotion, it turns out, is a fire, and like a fire it needs fuel. Unfed it dies down to a hot and banked glow, ready to ignite again but leaving space for other matters.

Throw away too much of your past and you abandon the person who walked those days. When you pare away at yourself you can reinvent, that’s true enough, but such whittling always seems to reveal a lesser man, and promises to leave you with nothing at the end.