Ashes of Man (Sun Eater, #5)

by Christopher Ruocchio

A single red eye floated through the mist and smoke over the heads of the Cielcin opposite Sharp. A chimera, a demon of Arae. One of the Iedyr? I could not say. Had Vati come as well? Or were Attavaisa and Hushansa alone in leading this fight?

That, doubtless, was what the Prophet foresaw. Perfugium was to be but the first link in the chain that hanged mankind. Whether I was killed or not, whether the Emperor was killed or not, it didn’t matter. The campaign was on.

Everything matters. The cosmos is not cold or indifferent because we are not indifferent, and we are a part of that cosmos, of that grand order which has dropped from the hand of He who created it. Every decision creates its ripples, every moment burns its mark on time, every action leads us ever nearer to that last day, that final last battle and the answer to that last question: Darkness? Or light?

“Valka,” I said. “I’ll see you in orbit.” “I know,” she said. “I love you,” I said. “I know that, too, anaryan,” came her reply. “You’re not wrong.”

For all his power, all his station, his breeding and command, the king could move but one square at a time.

Nothing endures, nor lasts forever. Not stone, not empires, not life itself. Even the stars will one day burn down—as I have seen and know perhaps better than any other man. Even the darkness that comes after all will one day pass away to new light. This record, too, and this warm scribe—my hand—perhaps, will fade. The stones here on Colchis shall fall into the sea, and the sea dissolve to foam. The stars shall burn the worlds to ash, and cool themselves to cinders. All things fade. Fall. Shatter.

How well I remember my reflection in that broken holograph, that table of shattered glass. Jari the Seer had spoken of my broken road, my ruined path through time. Brethren, too, had seen it, had marked the ways in which the Quiet had interfered with me, had moved me to his purpose. He had shifted Demetri’s ship from Teukros to Emesh, had traded my right arm for my left, had brought me to that mountaintop on Annica, and from Annica to . . . where? To Eue? To Perfugium? To hell itself?

Nine million had slumbered beneath Perfugium. We had saved fewer than one in thirty, though the Emperor was one. But Perfugium was no victory. I saw reports later, heard stories, of how the Cielcin had cracked open the catacombs behind us, of the millions drained of cryonic fluid, killed, and hung upon the walls of Resonno. Attavaisa was dead, but Hushansa’s men feasted on all of those we could not save.

How could he let me go? I was only safe in his service, only useful as his tool. Freed of that service, I was a danger, must be branded an enemy. I understand him now, his desperation. He was trying to save my life. The Chantry had wanted me destroyed—dissected, possibly—since my knighting after Vorgossos. In anointing me one of his Royal Victorians, the Emperor had cast a cloak of protection over me the Chantry might challenge only in private.

Evil occurs because we are insufficient to challenge it. Too weak to stop it at the gates, too blind to see it bubbling within. Were we all angels in our virtue and heroes in our capacity, we might hold all chaos at bay, might stop even the unkindling of the stars.

Your Emperor fears you, fears you mean to supplant him. He casts you aside because you are like highmatter with no handle, and he lacks the art or courage to understand. I lack only the art.”