The Last Druid (The Fall of Shannara #4)

by Terry Brooks

life deals out unexpected joys and sorrows, and we can but treasure or suffer each.

It was comforting to have Fade there—a reassuring presence in the darkness, an audience of one that would never judge or attempt to interrupt, reassuring in her steadfastness.

We are all victims of our lives, and we cannot change what we do in the aftermath; we can only try to make up for it. Nor can we change the minds of all those who have come to see us as they wrongly believe us to be. Some can never forget. Some beliefs are fixed in stone.

He was also a man who had long since exceeded his ability to live up to the expectations of his title and position.

Drisker was struck by what he saw: a mix of softness and deep regret, of kindness once prevalent and now reduced to almost nothing. There was a humanity deep within her that had been all but stripped away by her trials.

She paused, her eyes shifting away to focus on something he could not see, consumed by memories that clearly haunted her.

Had circumstances been different, he was not who Ajin would have been looking for, either. But life gave you what it chose—a random and often unexpected series of selections that sometimes turned out to be better than what you would have chosen for yourself. For her, this was Darcon Leah.

Drisker did not think love was quite the right word for it, yet on more than one occasion he caught each of them gazing at her with a kind of rapture in their eyes that was unmistakable. It made him wonder if some form of love was yet possible with these banished and forgotten creatures. He wondered if, in spite of everything, they were not still capable of the same feelings that those dwelling back in the Four Lands enjoyed. Surely any form of kindness or show of affection constituted love in the eyes and hearts of those who were lucky enough to experience it. Perhaps so, he thought. Do not be too quick to judge.

She gave him a surprisingly warm smile and a look of appreciation that revealed some small part of the woman she had once been. Then she eased open the storage room door and they stepped outside.

When she thrust her arms at him, the fire raced down her limbs as water might run from a faucet, surged free from her body, and engulfed the Chule Lord. In what could have been no more than a few seconds, he was burning from head to foot, a human torch welded in place by the death that had claimed him.

Tarsha had crossed a line she could not identify and had not realized was there, but it revealed in no uncertain terms that she was no longer the student of the magic she had been born with, but its mistress.

Do not fight that which threatens to steal all hope; embrace it and make it your own.

She saw the danger in the last moments of her life, and then the lance penetrated—piercing her, shredding her, stealing away her last breath, her last heartbeat, her final thought, her life.

“Goodbye, Tarsha Kaynin. Be well. Be strong. And be at peace.” She disappeared into the trees, her eyes on the way forward, her long journey almost at an end.