Of War and Ruin (The Bound and the Broken, #3)

by Ryan Cahill

“How… how can they still go on?” “For the same reason you do,” Yana said, resting her hand on Ella’s arm. “Because we are more than what we think we are. We are more than the sum of our parts.”

“I don’t think losing the ones you love ever gets easier. It is the only pain your body truly remembers. When you think back on a broken leg, you do not weep from the agony. But when you remember you will never look upon your father’s face again, it cuts as fresh as the first day. What does get easier is carrying on. The weights on our shoulders rarely get lighter, but we can get stronger.”

“There is a reason honour is a dangerous thing,” Belina said, leaning her elbows down against the knees of her folded legs. “Honour and religion.” She let out a short sigh at the curious expression on Dahlen’s face. “Both honour and religion are things mortals use to justify atrocious deeds. To absolve themselves of the guilt they have so deservedly gained. They are more dangerous than any blade or any dragon. If a god tells a man to murder a child, they will oblige. It wasn’t their choice – it was the word of a god. That man is not a murderer – he is a conduit of divine will.”

“Can you sing without your lute?” The woman contorted her face into a look of mock insult. “Can I sing without my lute? How dare you, Dahlen Virandr. The lute is simply accompaniment. I am the talent.”

Humans are a fickle species. We are only ever three meals away from chaos. What little rations we have left will soon be gone, Daymon. My advice would be stop thinking of yourself as their king and start thinking of them as your people.

“You humans place too much stock in blood,” Elenya said with a sigh. “There is no such thing as noble blood. Blood is blood. Nobility is in the doing of things. In that, Oleg has shown far more nobility than any of you.”

He’d held no love for Daymon, but in a strange sort of way, he’d found a kind of kinship between them. They were both two young men, trailing in their fathers’ shadows, trying to find their place in the world. Dahlen understood that pressure. The pressure to be something more, to be something special.

“Elyara, give me patience. I’m going to string him up by his ankles.” “He finds light in the darkest of places,” Therin said, his expression sombre as he looked at Dann, who had turned back to carving the wood. “It’s a special quality. He jokes and he laughs, but he’s lost, Aeson. He’s seen no more than twenty summers. He’s thousands of miles from his home, and those closest to him are beyond his saving. Give him a break. He’s trying.”

“Your first attempt was horribly poor,” he repeated. “Your second was less so. Among my kind we hold our failures close, so as to learn from them. We take pride in them because failing means you tried. You can only ever succeed if you allow yourself to fail.”

“Death is the only thing we are assured of in life. It’s not how we die that matters, it’s how we live.”

‘My people believe that what is grown in the womb is simply a vessel. It is our gift to the soul that will one day become our child. When our children are born still, we believe the soul has chosen to wait for a different vessel, one that aligns with their hearts. In some cases, we cannot build the vessels our children need. But that does not mean there is not a soul out there that needs our love. It is said that life is a gift from the gods, but love is what gives life meaning.’ Ella wasn’t a child, but she was someone who needed love.

‘The sun will set, and it will rise again, and it will do so the next day and the next. The gods are in charge of such things, but it is by our own will that we pick ourselves up when we fall.’

He watched as the body twitched, then went still. There was nothing heroic about battle. There was nothing inspiring about death. As he stood there, Calen decided that if the bards did tell tales of this day, he would have no heart to hear them.