And life goes on, which seems kind of strange and cruel when you're watching someone die.

My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.

He knows bad days. Bad days take him completely by surprise. They make him not trust the good days because it's likely something is lurking twenty-four hours away.

Somehow, even in the worst of times, the tiniest fragments of good survive. It was the grip in which one held those fragments that counted.

The two horsewomen of the apocalypse still win, despite their dwindling numbers.

We pass more women with swollen bellies hurrying towards the godshouse and Arjuro presses a kiss to Tariq's outstretched fingers. 'She's mocking me, runt of our litter,' Arjuro tells him. 'The Oracle is mocking me for choosing a man to share my bed. And her punishment is that I spend the rest of eternity staring between the legs of women.

You list the dead. You tell the stories of the past. You write about the catastrophes and the massacres. What about the living, Finnikin? Who honors them?