Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,66
waved toward the remains of the log. “I was annoyed.”
“Anger can be the enemy, especially when you haven’t mastered something—most people tend to flail ineffectively and just grow more frustrated. I think that with you, it is as I’ve said, and you already understand the basics—even more than the basics, as you’re more advanced than you seem to believe. Getting angry makes you forget to think and analyze. Your brain is getting in the way of your effectiveness. In addition to your tendency to analyze, you worry about the consequences a lot. Did you really warn the fish to get out of the way before you flung that?”
“There’s no reason to kill needlessly,” he said sturdily.
“They’re fish.”
“I feel it when they’re in pain.”
Her brow creased. Yanko braced himself for the disappointment or the mocking that Father had given him when he had long ago explained why he could train hounds for the hunt, but he couldn’t join in himself.
“That may be why you struggle with fire, then.” Pey Lu rubbed her chin as she considered him.
Yanko tried not to feel like she was pondering how to make use of a hound afraid of the hunter’s gun.
“Fire kills,” she said. “That’s how it is.”
“Yes. One could throw warning shots over an enemy’s head, but they would grow fearless, I assume, if you never hit them. And I don’t think I could...” His gaze drifted to the charred log, now growing distant as the ship continued sailing away. He couldn’t do that to people. He still had nightmares about the kraken.
“They do, indeed.” Pey Lu lowered her hand and drummed her fingers on the railing. “If you go through Stargrind and join the army, your instructors will do their best to desensitize you to that, especially since you have the potential to be very powerful. They’ll want you to be a pure weapon.”
Very powerful? Clearly she hadn’t seen him fumbling through the entrance exams. Though he wondered now if she was right, if he had more potential than he realized, and it was his mind that was getting in his own way.
“Is that what they did to you?” For the first time, he wondered if his mother’s indifference to human life was natural. Had she been born not feeling empathy for others, or had that been inculcated by her superiors? By instructors who had seen her potential and wanted to turn her into a pure weapon.
He shifted uneasily at these new thoughts. Falcon hadn’t been turned into a heartless monster in his two years in the army, but he wasn’t a mage. Nuria had always considered foot soldiers to be for little more than defending those who could manipulate the mental sciences.
“There was a war coming,” Pey Lu said. “They knew they would need weapons equal to the Turgonians’ technology.” She shrugged, not seeming bothered by the past. “I don’t remember ever caring one way or another about fish, so I doubt I was the challenge for them that you would be. Some animals can be broken and some are destroyed when it’s attempted. They might do that to you without even realizing it.” She frowned at him—disturbed by this image?
It certainly disturbed him.
“There aren’t any wars with Turgonia on the horizon,” he said, hoping that was true. What would happen if Dak found that lodestone before Yanko and took it to his homeland? Wouldn’t his people fight for that continent? Especially if it was lush enough to make excellent farmland?
“There’s a war even closer than the horizon,” Pey Lu said, “on our home soil.”
“The rebel factions.” Why did everybody know more about what was going on at home than he did? What worthless newspapers he and his uncle had been reading.
“I predict the Great Chief will be removed or killed within the year. And then? There are too many factions that want to try their hand at ruling the nation. The war for supreme power over it could be long and bloody. It could end up with the Great Land being divided into smaller countries, countries that would then be easy prey for other nations, if they couldn’t band together.” She shrugged, as if it mattered little to her. “Stargrind will be rushing candidates through and yes, making tools effective for war.”
Yanko would have been entering the first year of his schooling by now if he had passed those exams and gone away to the academy. Was his mother right? Would they already be trying to break him?