A Warrior's Burden (Saga of the Known Lands, #1)

by Jacob Peppers

The poets wrote of beauty in death, but the poets were fools. Why else try to put into words those things—love, hate, beauty, death—that must only be felt to be understood?

“The young are young for a reason—they’re the best at it and the only ones likely to survive the terrible choices they make.

They say you get older, you get more wisdom. I can’t say as I rightly agree, except that you get a better understandin’ of how fragile life is, yours as much as everyone else’s. Maybe that’s all wisdom really is, in the end.” “Maybe.”

But a man can’t outrun his past, his name, any more than he can outrun himself. After all, no matter how fast you go, no matter where you turn up, well, there you are.

If only a man’s past could be dealt with so easily. But a man does not burn his past—it burns him.

“Death is never something to be courted, boy. Do you understand? It comes for us all in the end—there is no reason to invite it in.”

Revenge is a sour drink and no surprise considering its ingredients. Hate and rage, pain and loss…how can it be anything else? Yet, as sour as it is, as bitter, there is one more truth to know— Men will never stop seeking it.

But if life had taught him anything it was that the world loved nothing more than to mock a man’s promises, particularly those promises he makes to himself.