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Always remember: strong men are many, wise men are few.’
‘Glorious victories make fine songs, Yarvi, but inglorious ones are no worse once the bards are done with them. Glorious defeats, meanwhile, are just defeats.’
‘A king must win. The rest is dust.’
Bound for a life of books, and plants, and soft words spoken.’
He had always been weak, but he never felt truly powerless until they made him a king.
‘Their anger is dust to me.’
‘Don’t worry, my minister,’ he said, ‘there’s always the chance I’ll survive.’
He left Father Peace to weep among the ashes, and hastened to the iron embrace of Mother War.
Sometimes calm waters hide fierce currents,
It was an awful risk, but better than throwing himself on the mercy of Mother Sea for, as every sailor knows, she has none.
To the unarmed, armed men all look the same.
Strange, how quickly a king could become an animal. Or half a king half an animal. Perhaps even those we raise highest never get that far above the mud.
By his calculation he was sold for less than the cost of a good sheep. He made no complaint at the price.
The fool strikes, she had said. The wise man smiles, and watches, and learns. Then strikes.
The last few months had only reinforced Yarvi’s long-held opinion that he was no hero.
‘If we had known the hardship of it, we might have chosen another.’ ‘So it is with many choices.’ ‘All we can do now is see it through.’ ‘So it is with many choices.’
You cannot expect all the heroes to survive a good song, you know.’
And he realized then that he had not lost all those times in the training square because he lacked the skill, or the strength, or even a hand. He had lacked the will. And somewhere on the South Wind, somewhere in the trackless ice, somewhere in this ancient ruin, he had found it.
‘Pick your enemies more carefully than your friends,’ Nothing was muttering at the flames. ‘They will be with you longer.’
‘A good one sacrifices everything to win, and stabs who he must however he can.
He had been kneeling all his life, to kneel a little longer was no hardship.
The only way out was through,
Strange, how you never see how much you want a thing until you know you cannot have it.
‘If life has taught me one thing, it’s that there are no villains. Only people, doing their best.’
‘A kind word parries most blows.’
