Ashes of Man (The Sun Eater, #5)

by Christopher Ruocchio

“Too many ghosts,” I said, and smiled.

The ugliness of the world does not fade, nor are fear and grief made less by time, nor is any suffering forgotten. We are only made stronger by its blows.

We have need of heroes, however broken, however terrible, however insufficient they may be. And we have need of more than one hero, for heroes do break, you know.

“Monsters don’t have doubts.”

Some ask nothing of us, and so we are nothing to them. But there are those women who ask all of us. Those are the ones worth giving all for.”

One cannot step in the same river twice, and home is not home when you return, for you are not yourself. The man you were yesterday died yesterday, and is only a piece of the man of today, as you will be tomorrow.

Perhaps that is why it seems we have ghosts. Because we carry them in ourselves.

“Some men love a thing so much they hide it away, others love a thing so much they boast of it at every opportunity.”

“You . . . want to reenter my service?” Lorian stood smoothly as his ungainly limbs would allow, crossed the few yards between us. To my astonishment, he knelt then and there upon the red and golden carpet, and took my left hand in both of his. “My lord, I never left it.”

“Angels are only demons that kept their oaths . . . and still serve good and truth.”

The ugliness of the world does not fade and pass away. Have I told you that? That fear and grief are not made less by time? All life is tragedy, for all life must end—and so no life grows stronger by its ending.

it was a gift! And it would be no gift had I expected its return. I have lost nothing!

“These are grievous times. But perhaps so great a darkness calls for even greater light. It is written that no guide is known that can shelter the world from grief, for no man knows what God intends.”

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?