Flamefall

Revenge doesn't need to begin with a knife. It can begin with a well-delivered speech.

I know it's been hard for you, since the duel. Since - since the orphange. You've been so busy at not being him, and you've been so beautiful at not being him, Lee -cutting off your roots every time it's been asked of you. I've watched you do it, and watched you hurt, and I think you've done it enough." Her voice hardens, her breath quickens. "When you look at this knife, I want you to remember it belonged to a father who loved you. And I want you to remember that I was the one who gave it to you.

But keeping power is so much more difficult than gaining it. You have to make sacrifices. You keep sacrificing until you realize the thing you've sacrificed is yourself.

Logs on fire. Fires to burn the world down. A lifetime in the ashes of such a fire has taught me that it doesen't end there. Anyone can start a fire. The problem is what happens after.

The best parts of myself, I found with Annie.

I don’t need Power’s encouragement to be strong. I don’t need anyone’s encouragement to be strong. Strength isn’t the problem. It’s what you do with it.

Revenge doesn’t need to begin with a knife. It can begin with a well-delivered speech.

What greater proof could there be that my Guardians are the best of them all, than that they want to reform the very system that gave them power.

Tonight I'm full of confidence, like a dragon riding a gale. I am done letting these tendrils of shame tie me to the ground. No shadow is so great that it doesn't shrink when viewed from the air.

And though this exposure, private turned public, should make me feel vulnerable - standing at his side, smiling with all my teeth - I feel only powerful. For the first time I glimpse how we could do this, not just tonight but from now on. Together, side by side, we're like a Damian warship. Buoyant, impenetrable, precise.

To Atreus. Who spared my life as a child, because he was merciful. Who has been like a father to me, for all the years since I renounced my own. Who saw in me not a dragonlord, but another Revolution’s son.

We are all of us Revolutionaries.