Ravencry (Ravens' Mark, #2)

by Ed McDonald

Turn and kill and move and fight and don’t stop for anything less essential than breathing.

If we could all just remain kids forever I doubt that there’d have been a war, or an Engine or cannon and swords in the first place.

If you fear getting older, then you’re losing every second of your life, and I was always determined to win the battles that I chose to fight.

They didn’t understand, nobody did. Valiya got it, the need to observe, to fuel the anger that stokes the need to fight. I watched, and I saw the dreadful grief on that grandmother’s face. I made myself listen to it. Fuck sleeping. Fuck people’s fearful stares, fuck the lack of respect from the squawks and the cream. This was what we fought: this cruel and indiscriminate waste of life. How the hell could I sleep when there was this much darkness in the world?

Individual people can be highly intelligent, but put them into a mob and they change. They become something else. Something really, really fucking stupid.

“GALHARROW,” the whispered roar struck at me, “DO NOT FALL TO THE SPIRIT IN THE LIGHT. IT WILL SEEK TO UNMAKE YOU. DO NOT FUCK THIS UP.”