Of Darkness and Light (The Bound and the Broken, #2)

by Ryan Cahill

Ella’s voice caught in her throat, and she pulled Faenir’s head in tighter to her lap. “He is gone, but that does not mean I will not carry him with me for the rest of my life. When my brother, Haem, was taken from us, my mother told me and Calen that ‘we honour the dead not by how we mourn their death, but by how we live on despite it.’” “I like that,” Shirea said, the weakest of smiles touching the edges of her mouth. A tear ran down the woman’s cheek as she fidgeted with the nozzle of the waterskin. “Will it ever stop hurting, though?” “I don’t think so,” Ella said, feeling a tear roll down her own cheek. There was no point in lying.

“There are demons within us all that we must face. They only ever surface when we are at our lowest because they are not strong enough to challenge us at our highest.

“Besides, there is nothing more important in the darkness than a ray of light.”

There was no other thing in the world that compared to it. To lose the other half of you was to have the skin peeled from your living bones, to have your heart pulled from your chest and your eyes burned out.

We are born, we live, and we die. Those three things cannot be changed. The only thing within our control is what we choose to do with the short time we have – the things we fight for, the people we love, the things we hold dear. Good men stand even when it is against all odds. They were, each of them, good men.” Calen sighed, feeling the frustration swell within him. “That doesn’t make it any easier.” “It wasn’t meant to,” Tarmon said, shrugging slightly. “Things that matter are rarely easy.” Calen

Lay all the plans you want, lay even more, but expect them to fail and plan accordingly.