After every winter comes the spring, and every death is accompanied by the promise for more life. With his dying breath, Admiral Mitu Roso tried to save the children of Kiri Valley from wolves. On the night of the Lyucu assault, Souliyan Aragoz and Nméji Gon chose to buy more time for us with their own lives. It isn’t that they weren’t afraid of death. But they also saw themselves as part of something grander, a greater Life that never dies so long as each individual life refuses to yield to despair.”

“I am not wise enough to know the will of the gods or the right course in life, I only know that the world is too large, too beautiful, too interesting to let one act define us. Death only triumphs when we stop learning and growing. So long as our lungs sing with the gift of life, we cannot cease to give back to Life.”

old stories that had survived many generations likely held a truth—but a truth cast in the language of metaphors that could no longer be read.

Our cause may look hopeless, but we haven’t lost. It’s only when you stop trying to inspire them and resort to threats that they’ll lose all faith in you.

Tenryo Roaten was once just an escaped hostage with a single garinafin, and that my father began his rebellion with a band of prisoners and deserters about equal in number to ours. And I seem to recall an Agon prince who wasn’t afraid to dive into the endless sea from a city-ship, alone, armed only with the hope that he would find a way to free his people.

Kunilu-tika and Jian-tika may be gone, but the beauty of the world remains. We must not let the storm make us forget the rainbow.

There’s always a second act. Always

only a long journey can reveal the true strength of a horse—that’s a kind of land-bound garinafin, and much smaller. Only with the passage of time can we see the true characters of our companions. I’m sorry we weren’t better friends in the past.

Death only triumphs when we stop learning

What did that goddess-like lady say? If you do not like the stories you’ve been told, fill your heart with new stories. If you do not like the script you’ve been given, design for yourself new roles.

the foundational truth in all myths that survived the eons

there is nothing inherently good or wicked in the nature of tools, for they only serve to amplify what is already present in the hearts of humankind. The Lyucu are wicked and seek to enslave, and in their hands the city-ships of Dara further evil. My parents are good and seek to free the Agon, and in their hands the weapons of Dara bolster good. We show our character not by the weapons we choose, but through the purpose for which we fight and manner in which we wield them.

When things look the worst is also when our fortunes will start to turn.I call myself Pékyu of the Agon, but in truth I command less than twenty, and many of them not skilled warriors. Yet a single snowflake heralds the coming of winter, and a single drop of water is the source of the mighty ocean. I can offer you nothing but the chance to become part of something grand: a future of freedom. Seize it.

 It was also madness that made Tenryo think he could defeat my grandfather, and madness that made your ancestors think it possible to kill a whale in a boat made of bones and skins, It’s madness to fall in love, and madness to have children, knowing that the world is a cruel and harsh place and death our constant companion. It’s madness to fight to be free when the chances of success are so slim. Anything worth doing is at least a little bit mad.

No one is a villain in their own stories, and justifications can always be found to condone killing as being in the service of life. Like the goddesses Rapa and Kana, to die and to live are two
aspects of the same Flow.

I can describe for you the principle of reduction in suffering; I can point you to the words of the Ano sages and the teachings of the gods of two lands; I can offer you a hundred reasons why these causes are different, but a clever mind will also find a hundred arguments for why my explanations are wrong. Good isn’t always accomplished through beneficent means, and Evil isn’t always committed without some sympathetic cause.

There is no need for philosophy or religion, no need for appeals to blood or affirmations of the gods. It is enough that we have loved and are loved. There is no meaning in eternity; only now, only here.

Without realizing it, she had stopped crying. She had lost so much that her heart had emptied out, and only in that emptiness did she discover how much she had gained.

Why?” muttered Thoryo. People were killing and dying, and her words had been at least partly responsible. She had not thought it would feel so agonizing, so awful. Why must death herald every revolution? Why did freedom have to cost lives? Why was it necessary to kill to preserve the beauty of the world? She would never understand it

There are consequences for every change, most of which cannot be anticipated. The belief that all wrongs can be righted merely by the desire to do good is… worrisome. Even the wisest laws and the most dedicated ministers will produce injustice, so long as humans are frail and selfish.

with compromises, with… ambiguities. It’s unsophisticated, unwise, almost naive. He will never be a match against his regent politically, and I fear that he will prove to be a terrible ruler.

Some people, like Aya and Phyro, are eager to become kites in the storm to test the strength of their ideals and the height of their ambition, but that isn’t the only way to live a worthy life. The Fluxists say that when you cannot save the world, there is virtue also in retreating from the world. In a quiet cove, away from the storm, you may preserve the beauty of a single soul.

Just because we’ll be apart doesn’t mean that our love ends. You and I will both have many other loves, many grand romances and devotions and enlargements of the soul. But this is our first, and it will always be special. No matter how much time passes or how far apart we are, our love will remain true. We’re dyrans streaking past each other in the vast deep, but our shared lightning-flash will illuminate the darkness ahead until we are embraced by the eternal storm.

Actions reify ideals. If treason is the only path to mutagé, then treason it must be.

I feared you would feel that way. But Dara is better off with ten thousand cowards like Mosoa than one martial soul like you.

But it is possible to lose a war even if you win every battle.

But too little investment in defense can be easily remedied in a crisis, for there will always be brave men and women like you willing to take up the banner of Dara against our enemies. The opposite error, of trusting the army too much, is a far more perilous condition for the body politic. Courage can all too easily metastasize into a darker ambition with no cure. You remember what happened during the Principate: War became its own end, and warlords ruled the land.

A standing army is an insatiable beast: It demands foes and growth. More, always more. More funds, more weapons, more soldiers, more victories. It comes to dominate the economy, as inventors devote their minds to methods of killing and industry becomes entwined with the machinery of war. Expropriation and conquest become more valued than cultivation and production.

And when the army has run out of enemies, it will manufacture them. War is a drug that creates an unquenchable thirst. After Mapidéré conquered the Six States, he sent Admiral Krita’s fleet beyond the Wall of Storms in search of the land of immortals. After Tenryo Roatan was finished with the Agon and Admiral Krita’s fleet, he set his eyes on the Islands of Dara, though we had nothing to do with Mapidéré’s folly. What will Phyro do, when he has ‘liberated’ Unredeemed Dara into charred reefs strewn with bones? Will he not want to launch an expedition to Ukyu to punish the Lyucu and avenge the dead? When will the cycles of slaughter end?

In facing our enemies, we must take care not to become like them. As founders of a new dynasty, Kuni and I must always keep in mind that our actions are constitutive acts for subsequent generations, and weighty as precedent. If we do not prize peace, it becomes harder for successive sovereigns to do so. To protect the people of Dara from the dark future of militarism, the army must be caged and the generals chained.

You speak of broad trends as though they are certainties; you speak of historical patterns as though they dictate the future. But how can you claim to know the future when even the gods speak ambivalently? Time may not be a cycle. History is not the only story we can tell. Honor and courage do not have to devolve into ambition and zealotry

“Even if some of the veterans have been manipulated,” said Cogo, “it doesn’t make their sentiments inauthentic. To lure all the fish into one weir may be a trick, but that only works if the river is already full of fish.”

The protests have remained peaceful. If this is considered rebellion or treason, then it’s rebellion within the lines, treason by the book. The people are not threatening, but pleading for you to heed your own pronouncement: When the interests of the few are weighed against the interests of the many, the few must yield.

And who belongs to the many, who the few? Can the suffering of the people be weighed like fish?

Who is speaking for the voiceless people of Unredeemed Dara? Who is advocating for the interests of the hostages who are about to be sacrificed in the name of “justice”? They cannot march through streets or sing patriotic songs; they cannot make rousing speeches or debate legal precedents. All they can do is survive, and hope.

Many are speaking, but many more have been silent. The voice of the people is as hard to discern as the will of the gods.

Could you have predicted that despite all our attempts at suppressing the sentiments of patriotism, it has flared into such bright flames? Would you have believed that despite our plans at building an all-encompassing machinery of state, the people have framed their own institutions outside the bureaucracy? The world continues to surprise us because it is eternally young, while we march closer to death with each passing day.

You kept the memory of Kuni’s generation alive in the hearts of the young. You devoted your life to the people of Dara, serving them the best you knew how. If that isn’t mutagé, then the word has no meaning.

The chain of causation cannot be severed when the consequences of our decision are so clear and present.

How could evil be removed from the world without sacrificing those serving evil, even if unwillingly?

Killing is a terrible thing, and every time you kill someone, a little bit of yourself dies. In our histories, we call those who kill thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions, great, but they are often little more than hollow shells, walking corpses into which we project our fantasies of what heroism and nobility look like.

We are all victims; we are all oppressors. These re-rememberings are not marks of shame, but reminders of how we dishonor ourselves when we forget the pain and suffering of our own ancestors in the insistence of us and them, in the rejection of the truth of our shared experience.

I know that few of you have fought for me or know me,” said Théra, her voice calm but bone-hard. “So let me remind you of what I’ve done. I watched as my dearest companions in Kiri Valley died in an inferno of Lyucu creation. I lost my mother-in-law and children in a desperate flight to preserve the hope of Agon revival. I marched through the World’s Edge Mountains and Nalyufin’s Pasture to earn the respect of the gods and our ice tribe allies. I held my husband’s body as he died while being pursued by the Lyucu across the floes. I commingled my blood with Takval’s to become the pékyu. I planned the assault on Taten to kill Cudyu and free his garinafins. I led my warriors to triumph over a Lyucu army ten times the size of my own, summoned the voice of the gods to be embodied in arucuro tocua, earned the aid of a thousand free garinafins, and fulfilled the dream of the Agon people. Do not misjudge me as weak.

For you to be ready to wield the Grace of Kings, to understand the need for cruelty in the service of a greater mercy, to accept the world as it is, not as it ought to be. So long as you believe the solution to Dara’s problems is war and conquest, so long as you heed the seductive song of militarism in the service of liberating Unredeemed Dara, you must not be emperor. The people of Dara, all the people of Dara, deserve better.

Is it the nature of our people to either dominate or submit, to be master or enslaved, with no escape from cycles of retribution and vengeance?

The machinery of power must be able to watch its engineer. The body politic must be healthy enough to purge poison from within. No one can claim to be free from the safeguards and constraints I designed to rein in power, not even me.

You speak of submitting to the judgment of history,” said Soto. “What good is history without the truth?”

The nature of these men and women did not change, but history’s judgment of them was accidental, contingent, divorced from the truth

There are no whole stories, only fragments that suit the purpose of the moment,”

I grow weary of tests and judgments. I know what I’ve done; I know why and how. That’s enough. I care not to justify my actions to any god or man.

In this art, the highest accomplishment is silence. Let future generations tell what stories they like about me; it’s my gift to them.”

A well-crafted plan is indistinguishable from a miracle, especially if the plotter can be as cruel to herself as she is to her enemies.

That is the nature of politics. But even staged acts, when validated by the belief of the audience, reify into records of history and become patterns to constrain and guide future behavior. These constitutive acts are not ‘lies,’ but the very foundation of a better life for the people of Dara.”

Where doubt ends, evil begins

To forgo the pursuit of justice isn’t to resign ourselves to blithe oblivion and shouldn’t be taken as a gesture of absolution.

What you’ve done will cause endless strife and suffering down the ages,

To leave in our midst a population full of contempt for our traditions, to allow those responsible for massacres to pass on their language and desire for supremacy generation after generation, to give them the room to assert their own identity and to hold themselves apart—you have buried the seeds for a future rebellion, a disaster that will lead to the deaths of thousands.

If that were all, it would be bad enough. But you’ve done worse and more. You’ve chosen to commemorate the victims of Lyucu misrule rather than allow the atrocities to be forgotten, thus ensuring that the wound of history will remain ever-open and suppurating. There is nothing more powerful than constant reminders of the past to push the descendants of victims to demand justice and descendants of the perpetrators to feel themselves victims. You’ve set Dara up for unending cycles of mutual hatred and vengeance

There is nothing more powerful than constant reminders of the past to push the descendants of victims to demand justice and descendants of the perpetrators to feel themselves victims. You’ve set Dara up for unending cycles of mutual hatred and vengeance.

You speak of possibilities, of tendencies, of potentialities, not certainties. You cannot see the future. You can be wrong

You cannot read that which has yet to be written

But to deem only that which guarantees survival to be virtuous is to think like Cutanrovo; to believe that only that which leads to victory and conquest is of value is to follow the faith of Tenryo.

Compassion and empathy are not safe and easy paths, and they require the striving of all the people of Dara, Lyucu and native alike, for generations. But such is the lot of mortals. Even the wisest, most farseeing leader cannot hope to determine the fate of their descendants.

A winter’s worth of ice could not melt in a single spring day, and neither could a wound lasting half a lifetime

A winter’s worth of ice could not melt in a single spring day, and neither could a wound lasting half a lifetime heal in a single meeting. But it was a start.

The great lords strutted and posed on their stage, claimed to speak for those whose voices were too faint. They went to war or made peace, asserted the right of vengeance or granted pardons. They thought they did what was right. But who gave them that right to decide?

We’ve enlarged our souls with many loves and devoted ourselves to many duties, instead of consuming ourselves in one grand romance. We have more lines on our faces than there are breaths left in our lungs.