Role

Chapter 6

It is the task of philsophers and theologians to debate whether the
children of Thera are born evil or are caused to be such by the fickle
whim of fate.

Certainly Ydane has suffered much. But can what she eventually became
be blamed solely circumstance? Or was she born with some terrible flaw
that caused her to respond as she did?

Frowning, she pushes the thought from her mind and leaps into the air.
Her body twists and contorts into the shape of an osprey before she
even reaches the apex of her leap.

She is no philosopher. She is a destroyer.

The Tribunals are ineffective. They watch over Thera's protected cities
like perverse shepherds, forever preventing their flock from learning to
protect themselves. Keeping them weak. Complacent.

The followers of the Light are, by and large, hypocrites. They build
monuments in their White City to rival the gods while beggars wander its
streets and girls languish in its brothels. They live in a beautiful
corpse, content to avert their eyes from the maggots wriggling within.

Look at Jirash there in the shadows, famed of the Holy Brigade. Does he
not realize it must surely have been one of his guilded who supplied the
poisons that chained her in bondage?

She will burn it to the ground. All of it. The White City with its
contradictions; the hideous sprawl that is Galadon; the Sultan's and
Empress's gilded riches. It will crumble to ashes. And perhaps, some
day far in the future, when the fire within her no longer rages, she will
once more wander the forests of her youth and know some measure of peace.