The Rage of Dragons (The Burning, #1)

by Evan Winter

“Let them think me a monster,” the Dragon Queen thought. “I will be a monster, if it means we survive.”

“I’m asking that you fight to win. Anything less is the acceptance of loss and an admission that you deserve it.”

He would not kill women and men in a war with no end. He would not be part of the madness. Tau had a way out and, by the Goddess, he’d take it.

Tau held Aren, speaking to him, speaking words that made no sense. He spoke for no better reason than to hold his father’s attention, because as long as his father listened, his father was with him.

“I will kill them,” Tau told him through tears. “I swear it to Ananthi and Ukufa, I will kill them all.”

“Every day, every season, every cycle, you’ll live in fear, unable to enjoy the taste of food, the sun’s warmth, or the night’s breeze, because one day I’ll come. I’ll challenge you to a blood-duel, Petty Noble Lekan Onai, and you will die on the end of my father’s sword.”

“Kellan Okar, Dejen Olujimi, Abasi Odili,” he said to himself. There were three men left to kill.

What are savages… against the rage of dragons?”

Life is nothing more than moments in time. To achieve greatness, you have to give up those moments. You have to give your life to your goal.”

“Know this as well,” Jayyed continued. “Improvement can only come through intentioned effort. Every day must be hard for you. The days without difficulty are the days you do not improve. The days you do not improve are the days the men behind you close the distance. It’s then you give your enemies hope. Hope that, when they meet you in battle, they have done enough to finish you.”

“To defend against failure, every day must be hard. Every day must strengthen you. For it’s in the crucible of hard days that potential becomes power.”

“The wars you’ll wage aren’t decided when you fight them. They’re decided before that by the extent of your efforts and the substance of your sacrifices. They’re decided by the choices you make every single day. So ask yourself: How powerful do I choose to be?”

Man.

He was not the strongest, the quickest, or the most talented, not by any measure. He knew this and knew he could not control this. However, he could control his effort, the work he put in, and there he would not be beaten. He made a pact with himself, a pact he swore on his father’s soul. If he were asked to run a thousand strides, he would run two thousand. If he were told to spar three rounds, he would spar six. And if he fought a match to surrender, the man who surrendered would not be him. He would fight until he won or he died. There would be, he swore, no days without difficulty.

“This war… it’s made monsters of us. I don’t want to die a monster.

“I am one man, mourning one man, and will never have peace as long as the Nobles who murdered my father are alive.

Tau’s limits were not decided by his birth or nature but by the bounds of his determination and the extent of his efforts. That was what Tau believed, and he was going to prove it. He was going to show them all.

“Can a better world be found at the end of a dark path?”

Peace could follow, but three men had to die first. It was time to kill.

In a small way, the world changed that day, when the Nobles of Scale Ozioma broke and ran, scattered by a new and horrible creature, born in Uhmlaba but bred in Isihogo.

“I can’t imagine a world where the man holding a sword does not have the last say over the man without one. If you’re not prepared to fight, you place yourself and everything you love beneath the blades of others, praying they choose not to cut. I have felt the mercy of armed men and they will never find me helpless again.”

Daaso Headtaker feared no man, but she knew the truth. Two Swords was not a man.

“Tau Solarin, will you be our champion?”