The Stone of Farewell (Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, #2)

by Tad Williams

“Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess,” he said quietly. “Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival.”

He was not great; he was, in fact, very small. At the same moment, though, he was important, just as any point of light in a dark sky might be the star that led a mariner to safety, or the star watched by a lonely child during a sleepless night. . . .

Hylissa