The Second Blind Son (The Chronicles of Saylok #2)

by Amy Harmon

“Did Hod have a weapon like Thor?” she asked. “Arwin says his lack of sight was his weapon.” “How?” “Everyone underestimated him. No one paid him any mind. They thought him weak . . . vulnerable, but Arwin believes our weaknesses and our strengths are the very same thing. Two sides of the same sword.”

She did not fear death, so she knew death would not come. Fear was like that. Fear called out to fate, and fate always answered.

“People are afraid. Fear brings out the ugliness. It is easy to be kind and good when it costs us nothing. It is not so easy when it can cost you your life. So people are not kind, and often they are not good. And here . . . you are rarer than gold.”

“It would cost you nothing to take her pain away, Master,” Hod said. “Shh,” Arwin growled. “Pain doesn’t lie.” “Of course it does,” Hod argued. “There is no liar as skilled as pain. Pain will say anything to save itself.”

“Don’t fear your voice, Liis of Leok,” Ivo insisted, emphasizing the hard ending of Leok. “There will come a time when you will need it, and if you do not use it, if you bury it inside you, it will grow weak and small. There is power in your songs.”

She laughed, but the sound contained no mirth. “I am just like the moon. Young and old. Weak and bold. Distant and cold. I am a constant contradiction, even to myself.” “Mayhaps. But you are not distant or cold.” “I am. It is how I’ve survived. Just like the moon. The less I feel, the easier it is to go on. I have been this way for so long . . . I hardly remember if I was ever someway else.” “You are not cold, Ghisla. Not to me. You are color. You are sound. You are the song on the wind and the hope in my heart.”

“Oh, Hody,” she whispered, moved. “How can you still hope? Life has given us no reason for such belief.” “How can you not?” he said. “When we are together . . . how can you not?”

It is easy to lose oneself to the runes, to stare into them all day, and forget the world around us. And sometimes what we see does not free us . . . but destroys us.”