SOUTHERN SUN, NORTHERN STAR: A Gritty, Bloody, but Ultimately Hopeful Conclusion—Bring Tissues.

War doesn’t give us right and wrong. It gives us simply war, and on the other side of that, some will be free, and some will be alone. Some of us will work to do better, and some will pay for their crimes, but none of it will ever bring back the lives lost.

After reaching the end of this trilogy, I need to be left alone for about five to seven business days. Maybe even longer. To say that Southern Sun, Northern Star destroyed me is maybe the biggest understatement that I will say all year. It devastated me. It chewed me up and spit me back out. It left me bawling my eyes out hopelessly at nearly two in the morning, thinking there was no way I could continue.

It broke me down into a hundred—a thousand—tiny pieces, the words on the page digging into my skin like shrapnel.

And then, somehow, miraculously, those same words healed me. They mended closed the wounds left by previous chapters. Though perhaps not perfectly—certainly not back into exactly who I was at the start. But all the same, they stitched me back together.