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The path is made of many stones that look all the same. When you trod upon evil, do not rest or look down because goodness
is only a step away. The next may bring ruin, the next joy, but these stones are not your destination, they are but your journey to the path’s end.
I almost turn back around. No one will notice if I take a day’s leave. No one will dare say I didn’t work hard enough. I yawn again. Maybe just a stretch today. Body could use it. Better to face tomorrow rested. I almost cave. But I know by now that voice of reason is the enemy. Inside me there is a coward who fears discomfort. That coward will offer solace in the form of excuses. But it is the coward who grooms a man for his defeats. The coward who makes him accept them because he is accustomed to finding a good reason to quit. The coward inside can only be killed one way. I toss down my pack
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Darrow on the doubting, regressive voice in our heads - I.e the inner bitch
“To those who wrote that we might read, to those who fell so we might walk, to those who came before so we might come after, gratitude.”
“The wind is oblivious to the obstacles though her path would not be the same without them.”
Your head will be affixed upon my shield. And when rots the flesh, the skull will be cleaned and preserved with tender care, and set upon the right horn of my helmet so all may see me and know, there … yes, there up high … you see him, my son?
“Mother, your inheritance was guilt. Father’s was surrender. Because of you, because of Father, mine is struggle. That is better than guilt. It is better than surrender. I do not blame you. I thank you. You never pretended the world wasn’t broken, even when a broken world favored you.” He takes my hands. “I think … if love is anything, it is truth. If life is anything, it is struggle. You taught me that. Father taught me my life is not my own, not unless we win. So, do not come back here. Do not think of me. Fix your gaze on our enemies. Fix your heart on the struggle. And win.”
How ridiculous we must be to wage it when emotions like love run so much deeper in us than hate.
Be wary of tyrants: they will help you today and own you tomorrow.
Our sacred ancestors knew what we have forgotten: that peace, not war, is our sacred calling. That we were to lead by our example, not to be led by our greed, our hunger for power. I look around, and I am humbled by your acts of valor and sacrifice, but we are no longer a people united by our sacrifice or by our convictions. We are united only in our propensity for self-interest, infighting, and greed.
hold the light inside even as my home shrinks in the distance and our black ship races toward the Belt.
I am not as confident as I pretend to be, but how can you lead if you cannot walk—and how can you walk if you fear every step? Whenever I find myself doubting I’ve made the right decision, I force myself to examine our situation through
the lens of The Path to the Vale. A portion of the book’s tenth understanding comes to me often during these moments: Forgetting is essential to learning, just as exhaling is essential to breathing. Breathe out, then in. Find the self, then lose it once again. Thus, the path goes ever onward.
For my body, I train with Cassius six hours every day cycle. Three after I wake, three before I sleep. My body is bruised, my muscles ache, my hands are blistered, and my ego is smashed every day. He is a fantastic classical swordsman, and whenever he puts me down, he says with a smile, “Steel sharpens steel.”
“When life springs forth, death follows behind,” interrupts Aurae, quoting from the book. “When goodness is found, evil is close at hand …” “The path straddles the boundary between these things,” I
Our most noble families are rife with desire for vengeance. For power. Division is a cancer, Lysander, and I am excising the affected tissue.
“It is a sad fact that those capable of gaining extreme power are often unfit to wield it judiciously.
I am a monster because a monster is needed. But after, when the monster has rampaged and terrorized the people, they will need a savior to gather them up, remind them of their better values, and lead them to a better, more unified future. I have brought darkness to the worlds in its fullest extreme so you can bring the light.”
In the cold prison of our minds, we are alone with our self-hatred, our doubts, and guilt. No one more than Sevro. A friend may reach through the bars and hold our hand, but they cannot open the door for us. Only the prisoner has the key. All I can do is remind him we’re waiting for him when he gets out.
“Alone we are weak, at the mercy of fear. Alone we are too willing to compromise our morality. Our courage comes from the belief that we are not alone. That we cannot be divided.
helmet, realizing it’s in my way from feeling the movement of air around me. I laugh like a boy, but not at Fá. It’s because I feel the ascendent rushing through me. It’s swelling inside me. He cannot stop it. For years I’ve used Lorn’s art to make my name. Somewhere along the way, I began to think of him as a god, the custodian of some unimpeachable magic. I thought there was no potential beyond mastery of the Willow Way. Even training with Cassius in the pinched confines of his dueling room I felt as though we were only refining that craft.
My worries come and go, easy as an exhalation.
No longer concerned with overanalyzing my opponent or my own movement, my mind is free to wander and stumble upon a realization. All my life I’ve had the Helldiver’s mentality: smashing through obstacles fast enough will gain the laurel for my clan. But now, after breaking a million drills and myself, I can see the flaws in that mentality. I’m done forcing my way through rock like a hungry claw until I break. Now I know to shift around obstacles, flow through gaps, like those same deepmine winds that the path referenced, the same winds that filled the old tunnels around Lykos.
That wind becomes sacred to me with that realization. It finds its way through the smallest cracks and the biggest gaps. Darkness cannot stop it nor alter its journey. It cannot be chained nor held in the palm. It is movement unending.
I guide Fá’s blade when I can, and get out of the way when I can’t. My breath is rhythmic, and the clarity I’ve found feels semi-divine. Fá almost seems to move in slow motion. No longer a machine I cannot oppose, he is a puzzle I’m excited to deconstruct. I do it piece by piece, guiding his blade, weakening his armor in multiple places, only to return when the opportunity arises.
me, I find its dereliction less tragic than I expected. Time marches on. Nothing we build lasts forever, not without others to keep it. That was one of the many reasons I did not take the throne of the Volk for myself. Fá’s words haunt me. Ouroboros. It reminded me of what Lorn once told me: Death begets death begets death.
