But what you have to remember is that there are only two men in life who are perfect. The one not yet born and the one who has died. We all make mistakes. It's part of growing. The trick isn't to be perfect. It's to find a place of solace in the mind so that it doesn't cane you for trusting the wrong person or following after the wrong dream. All of us fall victim to harmful guile at some point.
Even I.
But hatred and rage solve nothing. Like a mighty fire, they quickly consume whatever is fed them. Yet it can't last. Soon enough, they devour all around them and burn out, leaving nothing but a hollowed shell no longer capable of feeling anything at all.
You, Makah'Alay, are the mighty Thunderbird. Born of human sorrow, you are the bringer of storms that swept through the land, destroying everything in its path.
Now spent, it is humble and giving. A protector who will sacrifice his life to save another.
How could I ever fault or punish that?
The cycle of the universe is birth, growth, death. And death, while unwelcome, is always necessary. Without death, there is no birth and no growth.
Most men die many times in their lives. The man we become invariably slaughters the child we once were. His knowledge of the world murders the babe's innocence. With the step you have just taken, the wise Makah'Alay has now laid the warrior Makah'Alay to rest. While you still know how to fight, you have now learned when to fight....
And most important, what to fight for.
Others and not himself. The First Guardian hadn't said the last four words, but that had been the lesson Ren had learned. Until the First Guardian had spared him, he'd always fought for his own glory, even while he claimed he was fighting for Coyote and his father. He hadn't really been protecting his brother. He'd been hoping that his father would take notice of his skills. That his father would, just once, embrace him and be proud to call him son.
But no one could change the mind of someone else. That was for them to do. And if they weren't willing, then there was no magic in existence to make them see what they didn't want to see.
His father had never held any use for him.
It wasn't my opinions that changed. It was my perceptions. That had always been Buffalo's quip whenever someone accused him of capriciousness.
Now, centuries later, Ren stared into the same pair of eyes that had once motivated him to murder....
"How much do you know about your father?" he asked her.
"Nothing really. My mother didn't speak about him. My grandmother told me the memories were too painful for her to bear and that I shouldn't mention him around her. So I never did."
"Your mother still won't speak of him?"
"My mother died when I was a girl."
So that was it, then. The First Guardian must have known that the Ixkib's line would die out and so he'd intervened to protect that from happening during one of their most crucial times. Knowing her mother would perish, he'd given her a child so that there would be a new Ixkib to carry on.
Which still begged the question of where the First Guardian was now. It wasn't like him to be missing while his daughter was in danger.
Maybe she's not really his daughter.
But he knew better. Between the mark all Guardians had and her eyes ...
He had no doubt about her. While her powers lay dormant, they were still present to anyone who looked past the surface. In all his life, he'd only been defeated one time.
By her father. And even then, it hadn't been through her father's superior battle skills. Rather, the First Guardian had won the fight mentally. He'd verbally stripped Ren bare and left him exposed until his will to fight was gone.
It was the dirtiest trick anyone had ever used on him. And given his past, that said a lot.
She arched one probing brow. "What are you hiding from me?"
"What do you mean?"
"I've always had the ability to know whenever someone was keeping a secret. You have a deep one. I can feel it."
Oh yeah, she was definitely the daughter. No one else had ever been able to read his moods-not the way the First Guardian had.
And he really wasn't into sharing. "You don't need to know anything about me."