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The titles bestowed on a small few were mere luck and pretense, not inalienable proof of something greater inside the individual.
A small, useless hope. But hope nonetheless. It seemed no matter the circumstances he faced, his capacity for the feeling would never die.
The irony of it struck him that such clarity of sight came only at the end. How cruel this life could be. No, not life itself, he thought, but our own actions, those taken and not.
“You think that makes a difference?” His brows drew together in a scowl. “Because intentions don’t matter, only results.
Only it wasn’t truly about making an impossible leap into a bottomless hole. It was about whether he could make decisions without knowing for certain what their effects would be but trusting they would be for the good. For every decision made was like jumping into the dark. Nothing could be known for certain beforehand. There was always risk.
Was he wise enough? Brave enough? Did he possess the compassion to think of those he ruled as both equal to and better than himself? Did he have the capacity to listen to them, to learn from them?
All he knew for certain was that he didn’t want to live in any world without her.
Just because something could be done didn’t make doing so right. Sometimes the opposite was true—not doing something that could be done was what made it right. But she’d gotten so wrapped up in the need to win, to end the war, to fulfill her duty, that she’d failed to weigh the cost of her actions against her very soul. She understood now that how the battle was won was equally as important as the winning itself. Losing herself along the way would’ve made the victory a defeat. She needed to maintain a good heart, not just to win at any cost.
It was a wondrous feeling to have no way to be sure, but to believe so completely.
