Demon in White (The Sun Eater, #3)

by Christopher Ruocchio

Rome of old was not loved for its greatness, so the poet wrote. Rome was great because men loved her, as I loved my Empire in that moment.

’tis well that whether we fail or not is up to us.”

His was the fear of the convict before the judge, as all sons are before their fathers, all men before women, all mortals before gods.

Rank only formalizes relationships between people, Alexander. It does not create them. One has rank because one deserves it, and if one does not deserve it, he will lose his rank. Or his life. A man would do well to become worthy of his honors, else he will be deposed as a tyrant.”

To be a good knight, a good leader, a good man for that matter, you must judge a person by his or her actions. By their character.

I am not sure I believe we are such a thing, but one need not believe in a thing for it to be real and have power,

We need such people in our lives, for without them we have no lives. We live in other people, by other people. They keep us on the ground. Keep us human—and I have needed keeping human more than any king or emperor. In no other company did I feel fully myself.

We do not spend men’s lives like coin, but as sacrifices freely given, offered as our ancestors burned their best on altars to please the uncreated gods. That is why the best commanders, the best captains and kings, make themselves known to their people—that their people may be known to them. That we might not betray their trust and obedience when the critical time came.

That is the danger of having principles. In politics, principle is like a sword aimed at the heart. Far better, one might be forgiven for thinking, for a lord to have no principles than to risk that he might fall on that sword. The principled man simply has more to lose.

Such relativistic thinking is always attractive to the young. Despising their parents—and through their parents all authority—they decide there is no authority but themselves, and therefore all knowledge which was and came before them is evil, and they alone wholly good.

I had believed that I alone had the wisdom to set the world to rights, not knowing then that true wisdom lies in knowing that I did not possess that wisdom, and never would.

Vast is the galaxy, and vaster still the cosmos. But vaster—greater—even than that is the cosmos, the great enemy of chaos, the order that stands above it all. Four hundred billion suns in our galaxy, trillions of worlds—half a billion of them settled by Man.

We fear silence. I said once that darkness is chaos itself, that in darkness any and all things might arise unseen like the cat from Pandora’s evil box. Silence is like that, but more profound. There was darkness before the dawn of time, and silence, too, but silence was the deeper thing, the canvas against which all thought is measured. You have heard stories of men driven mad in quiet rooms by the rushing of their own blood. It is not true. It is not the sound that does it, it is themselves. In silence, they are confronted with their own natures—and with nature itself—and cannot look it in the face. As darkness brings forth the creatures of the night, so silence brings forth the things within our hearts . . . if we will but listen to it.

Every place is the center of the universe. Everything matters. Every one of our actions, every decision, every sacrifice. Nothing is without meaning, because nothing is without consequence.

“I can’t do this alone,” I said. “Please don’t go.” She started, eyes narrowing as she looked up at me. “What?” “I thought . . .” I could not get the words out. “You thought I wanted to leave?” She looked almost wounded. “Where would I go?” The floor seemed to have disappeared beneath me, and I was plunging through the Storm Wall’s many hundred levels toward the planet’s core. But she caught me, reaching up to brush dark hair from my face. “You’re the only mystery I have left.”