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“You fight to prove yourself to others,” Israfil continued, voice low and fierce, meant only for her ears. “Pride drives you, and you think it makes you strong.”
“Don’t have to use a sharp edge to deal with every situation,” Olin replied. “More often than not a kind or polite word will fix a disagreement.”
Olin stretched his neck left and right, bones clicking. “I’ll fight you if you wish. But know this: I am old for a reason.”
“What about kind and polite words fixing a disagreement?” Drem wheezed at Olin, his mouth thick with the copper tang of blood, his split nose throbbing, pulsing with his heartbeat. “There’s a time for that,” Olin said. “But sometimes, son, the only answer is blood and steel.”
She is like the sun when she is happy, like a furnace when she is angry. I have never known anyone so utterly opposite to my people. All seething emotion bound within a sack of skin, blood and bone. Only when alone with our kin or Clan are we Sirak able to be like this. When in front of our enemy the cold-face is king.
“Pride, first step to defeat,” his father had said to him. “Emotion, the wild horse that must be tamed,” his mother had intoned. “Be the master, not the mastered …” “Wear courage as a cloak, live free, never bend the knee,” he whispered.
I know what Corban did. Fought Asroth, slew Calidus, helped to destroy the Seven Treasures and your gateway to the Otherworld.”
Sometimes age doesn’t mellow and soften, sometimes it twists and toughens, squeezing all the kindness out of a soul.
“Sometimes the heart leads us down a path that the head would avoid,”
Self-control can save your life, whereas lack of control … It can make it feel as if nothing exists except the now. And that the future—” she shrugged—“fades in the mind.”
There’s enough darkness in this very day, without searching old memories to find it.
Drem had known better than to argue, knowing how men got that look in their eyes and tilt to their head when a discussion had gone past the facts and somehow turned in their minds into a question of who was cleverest, wisest, strongest, most skilled, whatever.
“You cannot be truly brave unless you feel truly afraid. That’s what courage is. Doing it anyway, even though you’re scared.
“No, lad,” Sig rumbled. “He was murdered, and had it stolen from him. That’s a different thing entirely. And one that requires vengeance.”
