Howling Dark (Sun Eater #2)

by Christopher Ruocchio

“Sad is like a big ocean, and you can’t breathe deep down. You can float on it, you can swim a little, but be careful. Grief is drowning. Grief is deep water.

It is strange how we humans make our homes. We arrive in a place and—finding that place foreign and uncomfortable—place objects just as foreign in it until it becomes lived in and all strangeness is gone.

I do not dismiss facts. But that two and two are four requires first that a mind has conceptualized two as two and four as four, and understands addition. Of this, there is no guarantee.

There are two sorts of men. One hears an order from his better and obeys. The other sees order in himself and obeys that. All men obey something, even if it is only themselves.

We believe our fear destroyed by new bravery. It is not. Fear is never destroyed. It is only made smaller by the courage we find after. It is always there.

Joy is rare, a thing always of the now, existing without regard for time past or time future, and without depending on them.

I bit that last one off, knowing it would sting and hating myself for it. The shame I felt at that wounded my own pride further still, and as we so often do when our own actions cut us so deeply, I doubled down.

A man is the sum of his memories—and more—he is the sum of all those others he has met, and what he learned from them. And that is an encouraging thought, for that knowledge and those memories survive and are part of us through every storm, and every little death.

That is why we pray, why we build great temples and write great books: to ask great questions and to live—not by the answers, for such questions are unanswerable—but by the noble process of seeking those answers, that we might stand tall and struggle on.

I had met the captain of my ship in all that darkness, had met myself as I knew I should be, and he had found me wanting. So be it. I had a long road ahead of me, and a long struggle. So be that, too.

Strange, is it not? The paths we walk and that are chosen for us?

Unable to help myself, I said, “You are confusing peace with quiet.” “Well,” the First Strategos said, “who can tell the difference anymore?”