The Will of the Many (Hierarchy Book 1)

“No.” His eyes are sad. “Death is only meaningless if it does not change us, Vis.”

“I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard to live in this world and still be me. Still be your son. But what’s the point? Suus is still gone, and the Hierarchy still takes everything from me, one way or another.”

“I know it will be painful, but you cannot give up now. Remember who you are.” He pauses, moves as if doing something just out of sight. “You have to fight.”

But speaking to Fadrique has changed something in me. Sanded the jagged edges off my pain.

“Greed is by definition the moral ruler of the Hierarchy, Diago. All decisions are based upon it. It is not the strong who benefit in their system, no matter what they say—it is the weak. It is the ones willing to do anything, sacrifice anything, to rise. It rewards avarice and is so steeped in a wrong way of thinking that those within it cannot ev

“There isn’t.” He sounded surprised that I got the answer so quickly, though he didn’t compliment me on it. “And this is the risk of our world, Diago. The flaw of our system is in its head. In us. The qualities of a king change the kingdom. And not one of us is perfect enough to have a right to lead.”

“It’s impossible,” I said, somewhat impatiently. “You’re saying there’s no such thing as a good ruler.”

Bitter and dazed, the illusion of having achieved enough with that brutal journey to the ruins dashed. The heaviness of this place and my position here, briefly forgotten, returns to smother me.

Then one day, after I remembered where I was, what had happened, I broke. Wept for hours. There was this ache in me that I’d been pressing down over and over, but even after I’d shed my tears it was still there. A chasm I could never fill.