Howling Dark (The Sun Eater #2)

by Christopher Ruocchio

The actor knows he is on stage. The character knows there is no stage.

The rightly tuned mind does not deny its emotions, but floats with them. It accepts what it feels and so incorporates that feeling to itself. Thus the mind is not subject, but rules itself.

We have little control over our ends, and none over what passes beyond them. But if we live well and truly, those who follow on may remember us for our lives and not our deaths.

“Hadrian,” Gibson’s voice echoed out of time. “Name for me the Eight Forms of Obedience.” As I had done years ago, again I recited, speaking to myself in the dark of my cabin. “Obedience out of fear of pain. Obedience out of fear of the other. Obedience out of love for the person of the hierarch. Obedience out of loyalty to the office of the hierarch. Obedience out of respect for the laws of men and of heaven. Obedience out of piety. Obedience out of compassion. Obedience out of devotion.” I said them over and over.

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.

Everything we receive is a kind of gift, if we do not take it for ourselves. I had rid Captain Corvo of her monstrous commander and spared her life at Pharos. Were I still the boy I’d been, I would have said she owed me for my mercy. But mercy that expects repayment is no mercy at all, nor is a friendship truly a friendship that stands on debt and gratitude.

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.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain neutrality in a crisis.”

“This is well. We are beasts of burden, Hadrian, we men. We struggle, and by that struggle are filled, and so define ourselves. That is the way.”

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.

Darkness and a profound, echoing quiet.

SLEEP, SO THE CHANTRY teaches us, is the half-brother of Death. Having visited Death before, I tell you they are not even cousins. Rather sleep is the nurse of life, for often in sleep we are healed of the hurts we suffer and so find new life again.

“You are confusing peace with quiet.”