The Will to Battle (Terra Ignota, #3)

by Ada Palmer

« Thou art a foreigner among the Mitsubishi, » Jehovah answered, His gentle hand still on Dominic’s brow, « thy authority young and fragile. Thou must use it in the spirit in which it was entrusted to thee by Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi, who remains one of My fathers, and must be honored as such. Thou shalt either honor and further the needs and wishes of his Hive, or renounce the custodianship of it and return to Me, alone. » He tilted Dominic’s head back to make the suppliant face Him. « And I warn thee, My Dominic: if this truce fails, and violence desecrates the sacred Olympics, and thou provest to be the agent of that failure, I will not judge that the human race has failed My Great Test. Thou art a traitor to thy Maker, one of My creatures, My agent, not My Peer’s, so thy works are not works of humankind, nor thy sins sins of humankind, but Mine. My Peer’s creatures will pass or fail this Test, and if thou interferest, thou wilt only make the Test into invalid nothing. Nothing comes from nothing, not wisdom and not grief. Failure may indeed loose from Me the tears thou longest to see, but will not if thou art that failure’s architect. »