Falling (Book 4 Spoilers!!!!)

"Artham looked at the bed, the covers strewn on the floor, and the tray on the nightstand where the girls had served him tea, and he remembered the terrible dreams he had dreamed. They hovered at the back of his mind and assaulted him with familiar taunts: Coward. Failure.

"He shook his head and clamped his eyes shut. 'No,' he said. The voices grew louder. He felt himself tremble, felt a sluggishness in his mind, disorientation and fear pulsing like dark music.

"'No!' he repeated, trying to hold onto his wits. He had to find Sara. He had to sind Fara. The enemy was attacking. The attacking was enemy—find Cara Sobbler—she was in danger—Janner had told him to find her—to thank—thoo tank her—I left him!—I'm a Throne Warden—but you left him—the Fangs are coming—and now he's dead, dead, dead, dead—

"'No! Artham screamed. He dropped to his knees and tottered, and suddenly sleep seemed like a very good thing. He fell to his side, wings splayed out on the floor, and pressed his knuckles against his forehead. Some terrible feathery beast in his soul screeched triumphantly and chased away every thought and every word before it could be formed.

"He saw Esben chained to the wall in the Deeps of Throg, his lumpy, bearish face pleading—Don't leave me, Artham. He saw the slick walls of the Deeps as he wriggled his way through the—You were supposed to protect me—dark heart of the mountain and soon to the Blackwood where—Come back for me, brother—his shame was doubled by his relief at having escaped Gnag's prison.

"Artham heard himself babbling like a baby even as Skreeans shouted and hurried through the street below his window."

Artham's struggles with his past and mental health coming back to drag him down despite the progress he made really resonated with me, especially in how it ties into the series' final message of hope. It can be so hard to keep going after falling over and over again, and yet we keep going anyway because we have faith in something beyond our sight.

"But the half-moon light is given by a sun no eye can see, and the day will conquer night again by the Maker's good decree. And beneath the smoke and ruin, lo, the land is fairer still. And a king one day will sing again on the green of Rysen Hill."

Crossposted to DeviantArt and Tumblr.