The Light of All That Falls (The Licanius Trilogy, #3)

by James Islington

“I still remember the man who feared what he would become,” he said softly. “If he had seen who you are now, Tal’kamar, he would have torn out his eyes from grief.”

“You thought that I would be more pliable. More uncertain. You thought I would have enormous holes in my memory—that I wouldn’t entirely understand everything that’s happening, or who was a friend and who an enemy. Whether I was doing what I’d planned to do, or whether I was making a mess of things.” Caeden watched the Augur calmly. “I am clear now, Scyner—clearer than I have been in a very long time. I despise my past but I have to learn from it, not wallow in its misery. My confusion, my desperation, is not something that you or Nethgalla or anyone can take advantage of anymore.”

“Because we’re meant to realize that this is important, and figure it out for ourselves. ‘No decision without doubt,’” he added, clearly quoting something. “El could convince the world in a heartbeat—but if He did, it would no longer be our choice to follow Him. Instead, He enables us to choose Him.”

“That has always been your curse, Tal. You enshrine those whom you have lost, whom you have killed. You raise them above the living; their voices drown out all others who try to reason with you. They are your gods.”

If something is not clearly right or wrong then it bears actually figuring out which one it is, not dismissal into some nebulous third category. If you have a basis for your morality, a foundation for it, then there will always be an answer—and if you do not, then trying to decide whether anything is right or wrong is an exercise in futility and irrelevance.”

“That’s strange, but… do you know what this means?” Davian shook his head mutely, and Tal chuckled quietly at his bemused expression. “It means we are saved,” said Tal. He smiled, the expression full of hope. “It means you’re going to save us all.”

“Because hurting someone is not teaching them a lesson, Davian. As you pointed out earlier—we can hate what they do, but we should never hate them.” He shifted. “And I’m not ‘better’ than you. That’s not how it works. Believing in El, trying to follow His rules, doesn’t make you in some way superior. If anything, it makes you more aware that none of us can claim to be truly good. That’s why forgiveness is so important.”

Davian felt a chill as he watched. The words were delivered with a heavy menace that he wouldn’t have thought possible from Tal. A promise of violence that lay just beneath the surface.

“Then fates with us all,” he said, giving the Andarran salute to the people below.