THE END OF MAN IS KNOWLEDGE
The first time Lyr saw the spires of Terrastella's capitol, he had been visiting with his father. The austere man had given Lyr a rigid list of instructions to follow: he was to be polite and conscientious, to ask educated questions, to maintain eye contact—none of that flickering gaze nonsense—and to carry himself with the tact and knowledge of their home Court. Lyr had attempted to adhere to these directions, but when his father caught him shyly playing with a group of Halcyon boys, he was scolded in front of them for a lack of discipline. They were there solely to meet with some of Terrastella’s monks, and in doing so Lyr was meant to be quiet, watchful, and demure.
Now, when Lyr stands gazing out the crenels toward the Terminus sea, there is something as large as a leviathan moving within him. Even now he can bring to mind the precise expression on his father’s face when disappointment thinned the line of his lips, and hardened his brows. Even now he remembers the exact, chilly tone the priest could use to ensure obedience in his son and patron worshipers.
Lyr turns away to continue on his journey as sea birds wheel above him, crying out against the wind. There is a bitter taste on his tongue, and he attempts to console himself by wondering what poetry his mother would have written of the city he now inhabits. Lyr had heard everything about the sea below and the ominous cliffs—but nothing of Terrastella’s quiet, lilac streets. Lyr is a little in love with them, he knows. It is the romantic in him that suffering never staved off.
The soldier twines his way meekly against the battlements, toward the prominent tower of the citadel. An ingenious architect many years ago must have thrown down his plans between Susurro Fields and the Praistigia cliffs and said this is it. Every street in the city seems to direct toward the citadel in a spiderweb; every angle; every line of sight; leads back to the single—nearly lonely—tower. Lyr begins to feel nervous as he comes to the entrance; he is small and plain against the heavy oak door, and the guard standing duty requests to know his purpose there.
“I request to see the Sovereign, if she is available.”
The beauty of the citadel, his father had once said, is that despite the tests of time, the changing of Sovereigns, the presence of terrible devastation, famine, or war… the citadel has always remained strong, and timeless. This is how we know the gods walk among us, Lyr. They have a hand in ensuring what remains eternal in our finite lives.
His pulse is a rising tempo in his veins; he feels the beat, beat, beat of his heart in his ears and his face is flushed. Lyr hopes that she cannot meet him; but his tender and mortal hopes are irrelevant to his greater purpose and so he stands, statuesque if not for the way something moves beneath the tranquil surface of his eyes like a storm. Lyr waits, patiently, quietly, with the sea-breeze blowing fine strands of hair across his face.
I HEARD THEM SPEAKING OF PERENNIAL QUIET, I HEARD THEM SAY THAT SORROW IS JUST HAPPINESS AT A DIFFERENT DESTINY, JUST A DIFFERENT COLOURED LIGHT
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