Derive Read Online Free PDF

philosophy all in all, but arriving alive and well is also something that must be kept in mind.
    Cashton walked away with his head down before I could reach out to him. I should have stopped him, but I doubted I would be a good teacher at this point. Right now I needed to be taught, and sadly there was no one to offer that lesson.
    I found the drumsticks that Guardian had given me discarded on the marble shore. I picked them up, gazing profoundly at them. I let the anguish, worry, and confusion this dawn had caused fade as strange visions of me falling into music, into the blaring silence of it, consumed me. The stress faded as I took in this fantasy. I was a different man when I woke up this morning; I knew that much to be true. Now I had a curiosity for both music and a lavender beauty taunting me to let my guard down, to taste life for the first time.
    I was born today.
    I stared forward, trying to track Guardian ’s energy on the other side of The Fall. It took me a moment or two, but I finally saw where he’d been and vaguely where he was heading. He had already lived through at least two lifetimes. From what I could see, they were lives that brought great change. I suppose he knew what he was talking about when he said he would relinquish fear; that was exactly what he was fighting to do, with the girl he sought at his side.
    “There, he is safe. Just as I told his brother,” I heard Tarek say. I turned to see him just behind me.
    “He was an interesting one,” I said under my breath.
    One nod. Tarek pursed his lips as he came to my side. “I ’ve been told that we are all entering ‘A Time of Compromise.’”
    My soul seized. I had asked him more than once if he knew what these crests meant, why those who had them bore them. Seemingly, there wasn ’t a connection between us. He never offered a straight answer. He was loyal to his role, which was more than likely because he’d played it for so long. Why he and he alone was aware of each vision the Allurest had seen. Why he had seen the puzzle pieces line up to fall in place.
    When he didn ’t go on, when he didn’t open up and tell me why any of this was happening, I acted as I always did. “The naysayers always say that as fall and winter approach,” I said as I stared out at that enigmatic spinning circle of ice.
    We had dreadfully long winters. It ’s not like we suffered or anything; we lived in abundance in this reality, but it seemed that when the death of the seasons approached rumbles of the end of times often shadowed them.
    “Aden, child of my blood, your time is within breaths. Are you aware of that?”
    I let out a deep sigh that caused my shoulders to fall. “Could it not have come before I laid eyes on her?”
    I heard him smirk and glanced to my side at him. He believed it, too; she was mine.
    “I’ve told you more than once that there are no absolutes. Everything intertwines; one point does not come before the other.”
    “I don ’t even know her, and I feel like she is the only one I know.”
    “That emotion speaks volumes.” He cleared his throat. “I expected you to oppose the Falcons harboring her.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “For you are not ready to leave this post, to forget the twin that mirrors you.”
    “I don’t want her far away from me, but I need to be here. I need to make sure Guardian is pulled back, that Cashton is ready. I need to make sure Camlin doesn’t discredit all of us.”
    “Trepidation. That has always been your strength.”
    “My strength is to worry?” I quipped.
    “You challenge worry with logic. You find the effect and evaluate the cause, which gives you calm. Logic is your weapon.”
    “I don’t feel very logical at the moment.” I felt downright whimsical.
    “For there is no logic in the emotion that has surely awakened you.”
    I almost confided in him. I almost told him that I knew she was made of darkness, that I had seen it in her eyes. I almost asked him why I was tethered to