An Echo of Things to Come (The Licanius Trilogy, #2)

by James Islington

Darecians—a powerful race of people who ruled Andarra at the time of the invasion—mysteriously vanished.

immutable

Gifted—those able to manipulate a reserve of their own life force, called Essence, to physically affect the world around them.

However, they are rescued by another Hunter, Breshada, who despite her profession mysteriously lets them go again, saying only that they owe their thanks to someone called Tal’kamar.

“Are you sure about this, Lord Deshrel?” he asked quietly. Caeden nodded once, then knelt. Placed his head carefully on the block.

HOLY SHIT CAEDEN IS ALSO MALSHASH🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ WOW I feel like I should have thought about that sooner, makes so much sense.

it hardly seems very ambassadorlike. Ambassadorish. Ambassadorial?” He turned and gave Andyn a querying look. “It is a word, Sire,” Andyn confirmed. “Excellent. Not very ambassadorial,”

“We only discovered their existence not long after you raised the ilshara.

Caeden created the boundary?!

“There is only one reason to be passionate about a lack of faith—and that is fear,” said Caeden quietly. “Fear that you are wrong. An innate need for others to share your opinion, so that you can be less afraid.” He shook his head. “I do not feel the need to argue, to cajole, to threaten or accuse. If others wish to believe differently, that is no business of mine. I simply do not think that there are gods.”

“What is a god but a being with more power than those below them can comprehend? With understanding more vast than others can imagine? If you do not believe such a being exists above you, then surely you are a god,

“I have seen mankind making up stories to make themselves feel safe at night. Or for power. Or for glory. Or for respect. Or for control. But I have never known a god, Gassandrid. The wise among us understand that they are fantasies. That they do not exist except in our own minds.”

religions—things created by men in order to control other men.

“When El created the world, He gave some of Himself into it. Part of His power.” Gassandrid’s tone was calm, matter-of-fact. “Shammaeloth, in his jealousy, took advantage of that weakness and trapped Him here, within the bounds of time. El had intended for the world to be free, but Shammaeloth needed control in order to contain El. So he created fate. A single path, when there were supposed to be infinite possibilities. A complete lack of free will.”

Religion is the following of rules and rituals in the hope that they will somehow garner the favor of a higher power.

the moment one tune threatened to become soft in Davian’s ears, another picked up somewhere ahead.

He pushed through kan, extending his senses, carefully focusing as bright silhouettes became sharp all around him. Other sources of Essence—the flame from the fire in a nearby kitchen, two cats stalking along the roof, flowers in the garden over to the right—he

Eagle Vision!!

“It makes me … feel, I suppose,” she said. “It’s what any good song should do.”

“You will see. If you truly want to know if … your beloved is who she says, tell her … about tonight. Tell her I name her … Nethgalla, the Ath.

AHHHHHH SO MUCH SENSEEEEE

“Vessel blade. Nullified Diara’s Resonance armor, and …” He hesitated. “I think it’s bending time. Cutting a second or two ahead, somehow. Be careful. No telling what else it does.”

Dope!! Like atium almost.

dok’en—it was how he had spoken to Alaris on the road to Ilin Illan, what seemed like forever ago now. A place constructed in the mind, seeming almost real while you were there.

a soldier’s responsibility is to his men and his mission; if he can use the tools at hand to gain victory and spare even one of his own people’s lives, then he will—he should—repugnant though those tools may be. That does not mean that he revels in his actions, nor can it ever be the arbiter of whether he is actually good or evil.”

“War is the very definition of ends justifying means,

Aarkein Devaed. He recognized the language, though few would. “The fate of all that could be,”

“To this day, that memory haunts me above all others. To this day, I think of the friends I lost here and I do not forgive you.”

conviction is nothing until it is tested.

He acted as if it were a terrible thing, my meeting others and being influenced by them, forming a personality before trying to get my memories back.” He nodded slowly, confidence building. “He was wrong. I don’t know whether I knew that it would happen this way, but he was wrong. Perhaps things would be different if I hadn’t met other people, good people, and spent time with them. Perhaps if I’d gone to him a blank slate, you would be talking to a very different man. But I didn’t. Instead, I see these memories and … yes, they become a part of me. But I reject them, too. They will stay with me always, but I will not let them take away who I already am.”

He could continue to argue but it was clear that the conversation had degenerated into insults. If he kept talking, he was only going to say something that he would later regret.

Oh ad-hominems…most common argumentative fallacy.

“Hello, Breshada,” he said quietly, taking a half step back as Andyn positioned himself between them.

I FUVKING KNEW IT

isn’t that what being moral is? It shouldn’t be about how you feel, it should be about what you do.”

people can adapt to a lot of things, and sometimes we just … shut off the part of us that knows, deep down, what’s right and wrong.

part of being a leader—the most important part, as far as he was concerned—was doing what was right, not just what was best.

“What was that?” he muttered to Deldri. “I told you she’s been acting strange.”

…Control?

The other—the one Taeris had called Thell—hadn’t been Laiman Kardai. That man had been heavyset, broad, with hazel eyes and jet-black hair.

“Don’t take it personally, Tal, but from what I saw earlier, you’re more or less useless right now.” Caeden grunted, oddly feeling mildly offended. “I brought down a building.” “The building wasn’t the one trying to kill you,”

The day on which you decide not to question what you believe, is the day that you start making excuses for why you believe it.”

“Are you willing to take the blame for anything he does if he gets loose again?” asked Ishelle angrily. “So you want to kill him because it’s expedient,” Davian responded bluntly. Ishelle flushed. “It would be safest.” “So would killing everyone who opposed us.

Gotta side with Ishelle here…Rohin is uniquely more dangerous than any regular foe they would face other than Scyner or whats past the Ilshara. His ability literally allows him to abuse people and he’s clearly open to the prospect. Some people deserve death and they might be the only ones who can deliver it to him. I think I might have read too many grimdark books recently…

tense to show any mirth. He turned to Fessi. “And you,” he said coldly. “You tortured him.” “He had information on—” “I don’t care.” Davian let heat into his voice now. “We have to be better than this.

Well deserved torture. Well needed information. No room for fuck ups. Not that I’d like to do it.

“I’m NOT!” Davian shouted.

First capital!

This, here, was a vision of something that would happen to him. Which meant that his confidence when this actually occurred was likely coming from knowing what was up ahead.

“Because you said that you owed me nothing,” Davian replied softly. “But I don’t believe that is true anymore. My name—my real name—is Davian.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Now figure out a way to get me out of here, Nethgalla.”

“The five Blades, forged by the God of Invention himself? Of these, Whisper is one. The others are Thief, Knowing, Sight, and Fate.”

The names she’d heard in the catacombs—Isiliar, Alaris, Meldier, Wereth, Andrael, Tal’kamar. They weren’t quite the same, but … she knew why they had been so familiar now. Isil. Alarius. Meldier. Werek. Andral. Talkanor. All names from the Gil’shar pantheon. All names of Desriel’s Nine Gods.

“I surrender,” she said loudly. “Under the condition that the rest of this group is allowed to proceed unhindered.” Kolis’s lip curled. “Very well. Toss your weapon aside.” “Only once they have departed.” Breshada stared at Kolis boldly.

Bet she’d just wait until the party was gone, then kill the administrators herself so the rest weren’t complicit and catch up after…she is a morally gray character after all.

“You were going to kill them?” she asked in horror. “I was going to escape. Whether they died would have been up to them,”

Hahaha Badass!!

“We should talk about this later. When I’ve had a chance to process it.” Wirr hesitated—he didn’t want to let her leave with this unresolved—but after a second, he nodded.

The mark of a healthy relationship!!

It was at this point that Jakarris himself walked in. When I saw the head of the Augurs enter that room—the black-veined Gifted still slumped on the floor, next to the bloodied corpse of his peer—I felt certain that we were dead men. Even knowing Jakarris only from afar, as with all the Augurs, there was no doubting who he was. Yet to my and Kevran’s astonishment, Jakarris proceeded to greet us in a friendly manner, quickly assuring us that he knew our purpose and was in fact there to assist.

Jakariss has to be Scyner!!

Then he saw his mother’s expression—too pleased at his shock, too smug at what she assumed was her point being proven—and everything that he’d learned over the past month began to reassert itself.

ACHHH SHES THE WORST

Physical proximity or being audible wasn’t necessary for a command to work, so long as Wirr said it out loud and was thinking of someone specific. More precise directives worked better, as—like the Tenets—there seemed to be a degree of interpretation to them being carried out. Instructions to forget a set period of time, or specific events, appeared to work as well. Those memories clearly weren’t erased, though; when the prisoner was told to remember them again, he was able to do so immediately. It went on. A newer command would take precedence over a contradictory older one. Instructions—if they were laid out clearly enough—could be conditional, complex, triggered by other events. Taeris even figured out that Wirr could direct the man to follow orders that he had no memory of receiving—leaving him with no clue as to why he was acting a certain way, but still unable to prevent himself from carrying out the instructions.

asked Wirr wearily.

=D

“You want to do the right thing, but you don’t want to do the necessary thing. And all it does is put others in danger.”

What do you think politics is, at its core?” He gestured. “Others will impose their will by threats, or by information, or by trickery, or with gold, or reason, or sheer charisma. They take advantage of what they have, Sire. None of them would hesitate for a heartbeat, were they in your position.”