Mark Lawrence_The Broken Empire 01 by Prince of Thorns

so, I could see his surprise.
    â€œI see you were paying attention after all, Prince Jorg.”
    In truth I had been somewhere else, somewhere bloody, but my body has a habit of keeping watch for me at such times.
    â€œPerhaps you can summarize my points thus far?” he said.
    â€œWe are defined by our enemies. This holds true for men, and by extension, their countries,” I said. I’d recognized the book Lundist brought to the lesson. That our enemies shape us was its central thesis.
    â€œGood.” Lundist pulled his baton free and pointed to the tablemap. “Gelleth, Renar, and the Ken Marshes. Ancrath is a product of her environs; these are the wolves at her door.”
    â€œThe Renar highlands are all I care about,” I said. “The rest can go hang.” I rocked my chair onto the back two legs. “When Father orders the Gate against Count Renar, I’m going too. I’ll kill him myself if they let me.”
    Lundist shot me a look, a sharp one, to see if I meant it. There’s something wrong about such blue eyes in an old man, but wrong or not he could see to the heart with them.
    â€œBoys of ten are better occupied with Euclid and Plato. When we visit war, Sun Tzu will be our guide. Strategy and tactics, these are of the mind, these are the tools of prince and king.”
    I did mean it. I had a hunger in me, an aching for the Count’s death. The tight lines around Lundist’s mouth told me that he knew how deep the hunger ran.
    I looked to the high window where sunlight fingered into the schoolroom and turned the dust to dancing motes of gold. “I will kill him,” I said. Then, with a sudden need to shock, “Maybe with a poker, like I killed that ape Inch.” It galled me to have killed a man and have no memory of it, not even a trace of whatever rage drove me to it.
    I wanted some new truth from Lundist. Explain me, to me. Whatever the words, that was my question, youth to old age. But even tutors have their limits.
    I rocked forward, set my hands upon the map, and looked to Lundist once more. I saw the pity in him. A part of me wanted to take it, wanted to tell him how I’d struggled against those hooks, how I’d watched William die. A part of me longed to lay it all down, that weight I carried, the acid pain of memory, the corrosion of hate.
    Lundist leaned across the table. His hair fell around his face, long in the fashion of Orient, so white as to be almost silver. “We are defined by our enemies—but also we can choose them. Make an enemy of hatred, Jorg. Do that and you could be a great man, but more importantly, maybe a happy one.”
    There’s something brittle in me that will break before it bends. Something sharp that puts an edge on all the soft words I once owned. I don’t think the Count of Renar put it there that day they killed my mother, he just drew the razor from its sheath. Part of me longed for a surrender, to take the gift Lundist held before me.
    I cut away that portion of my soul. For good or ill, it died that day.
    â€œWhen will the Gate march?” I left nothing in my voice to say I’d heard his words.
    â€œThe Army of the Gate won’t march,” Lundist said. His shoulders held a slump, tiredness or defeat.
    That hit me in the gut, a surprise shot passing my guard. I jumped up, toppling the chair. “They will!” How could they not?
    Lundist turned toward the door. His robes made a dry sound as he moved, like a sigh. Disbelief pinned me to the spot, my limbs strangers to me. I could feel the heat rising in my cheeks. “How could they not?” I shouted at his back, angry for feeling like a child.
    â€œAncrath is defined by her enemies,” he said, walking still. “The Army of the Gate must guard the homeland, and no other army would reach the Count in his halls.”
    â€œA queen has died.” Mother’s throat opened again and coloured my vision red. The