An excerpt from my book

I decided to share a couple of paragraphs somewhere from the middle of the book. It’s from the point of view of the most important character of the story, the emperor leading his army to put an end to the devastating raids from a hostile neighbor. Let me know what you folks think!

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Thalios went to bed early but sleep didn’t come. He got out of his tent to get some fresh air and walked towards the palisades facing the hills with a band of guards in tow. Countless stars twinkled from horizon to horizon in the moonless night. The night air was not crisp as it was in the mountain passes, only a little less sultry than midday. In another time and another place he would have enjoyed watching the stars.

“Go out into the desert and watch the myriad of divine lanterns in the sky, for their beauty shines brighter than your feeble lamps” one ancient poet had written in a long forgotten age. He was from the bygone desert kingdom in the south where Xil Dhara stood today. The kingdom had crumbled away many centuries ago, the names of its kings erased from the memory of men, but the words of the poet were still remembered today.

That many stars in the sky that many leagues away from the civilization made one question his place in the world, even under the strain of the impending battle. The words inspired by the endless field of stars above would live on, even after the Empire itself became history. No empire ever lasted longer than the wisdom of the poets. Why then am I fighting? Who will remember my name after five hundred years?

Everything seemed so meaningless and paltry all of a sudden, under the unnumbered stars shining there in the black firmament since the dawn of time long before men walked on earth.