The Strength of the Few (Hierarchy, #2)

by James Islington

I can see the waves again. Impossible, monstrous from this angle, miles away though they still are. The roar of their shattering thunders across desolate hills.

“No crowing? You didn’t even crow?” Aequa peers up at me reproachfully.

Emissa once noted one of them appeared to be a giant middle finger, constantly raising from and retracting into a clenched hand.

Emissa watching me anxiously. I look at her. Lovely and vulnerable and opening up to me.

the concept of home is, at its core, about safety. That no matter how familiar you may become with a place, no matter how long it is your abode—if it ever loses its sense of comfort, you can no longer truly call it by that name.

Grief, my mother once told me, is love’s most honest expression. The last and hardest aspect of truly, truly caring for someone.

His evil wasn’t taking three years of my life, Vis. It was being part of a system which could demand it.”

At the end of it, the glimmering iron outline of a hand appears.

I have been waiting for someone to make him an imbued arm this whole book

“Inner chamber. Exactly where I was aiming.”

did this guy just use luceum like a nether highway lol

Just the unease of intruding alone through an impossibly vast space.

But that does not make them invulnerable. And though my presence wouldn’t either, it breaks my heart to think its absence might matter.

You have come to trust and love in a way that I was not sure you would be able to again.

Watching miles upon miles of structures sprout into existence. Stone slick and shining. Not just buildings but towers, fountains, temples, statues. A great city, hidden beneath the glassy surface.

Water still trickles. Dead shadows and empty structures yawn everywhere. I feel as though I am treading the spine of a corpse.

This cannot be happening. My friend’s face is crumpled between his fingers. Her dark, straight hair molten with crimson in the dying light of the day.

They really tried to prepare me for this and i still wasn't ready

What is it they say, again? The needs of the many will always be loud.” He leans forward. Hooked nose inches from mine. “But in the end, it is only the strength of the few that matters.”

“A lion cannot surrender to a dog, Gallchobhar.

My long hair drips as it hangs about my face. The tip of my glistening silver arm

Close enough, welcome Bucky Barnes