When I am writing, I often have to go back and research what I have already written about characters, their exact words and actions, and while I was doing this today, I noted how Pero was feeling after he receives the command to leave Capua and go to Eagles Pass. In a way, I think he was feeling the way many of us feel looking at the state of the world right now, especially in America.
If you are a praying person, it’s sometimes difficult to see the unrighteous prospering while so many are suffering. And our hearts and minds begin to hurt as we seek the solace of a higher power that seems absent in the face of all the cruelty and treachery.
But sadly, I think this is a condition many have always felt throughout history but their pain goes unnoticed.
I am chiefly talking about the discussion Pero and Anthea are having in her apartment about him obeying the Court of Parthenope and accepting the quest on Eagles Pass.
Pero knows it’s a trap.
Anthea knows it’s a trap.
But Pero is already beset by nightmares and shades, visions of a world where everyone else suffers because of him and his mistake.
He believes these problems exist because of him, and he can take this sin away from Capua in order to protect everyone else – be the scapegoat.
But as Anthea starts to make more and more sense to Pero, Pero strikes out – not at her – but at the one who he is really mad at.
His Creator.

“The world has gone mad!” Pero continued. “Have you noticed? Are you watching? No one is safe. Why aren’t we safe? Must you break us in order to feel loved? Is that your game? Bend? Cower? Crawl? How much lower than the angels are we? I’m tired of crying to you from my knees! I want to stand! And what will you do about it? Will you strike me down? How many times do I have to say I love you before you hear? How many insults must I suffer? How many times must I lose while they win? I’m tired of your torment. Your absence. My mind is splintering but you will not break me! Not this time! I will break you!”
Anthea was not scared for herself but still she was quite frightened. “Pero,” she implored. ‘What are you raving about? Who are you talking to? What are you going to break?”
As spontaneous as a bolt of lightning, Pero stretched forth his strong right hand and grabbed the crucifix on Anthea’s red bureau. In an iconoclastic fit, he brandished it high above his head as though it were a sword. With a mighty scream, he smashed it on the floor. A blessed arm broke off as dozens of colored stones were dislodged.
Misfortunately, during his frantic wheeling motion, the prickly spur on the heel of his left boot caught and upended the antique loom. While jewels from the cross scattered and tinkled across the flagging, an unexpected blizzard of splinters and sticks from the fragile wooden device accompanied them. It was an irreparable mess.
Excerpt – The Crystal Crux: Betrayal

Sometimes, we all just want to explode. But when we do, it can cause unexpected damage in places we did not foresee.
Pero thought by breaking the cross, he was somehow injuring God, but in that moment of madness, he also broke something treasured and valuable to the woman he planned to wed.
And at that moment, Pero’s heart truly broke, his mind began to splinter. He had been trying to break off their engagement, and this seemed to seal it. He broke something of the two entities in the universe he most cared about, and he was not going to apologize for it.

In these troubled times, it’s easy for us to lose our faith. Faith is difficult. Many of us believe we have faith, but we have never truly known how difficult faith can be. We haven’t been truly challenged like people living on the edge, living in desperation, living in places where others can command them without any recompence for their cruelty, starve them and beat them with impunity.
Where is your faith then?
And it feels to many of us as if those terrible possibilities are getting near, on our heels like a storm chasing us.
But we can’t forget who we are.
We can’t forget what we believe in and what we stand for.
The Crystal Crux Series, despite all the various different characters and shifting points of view, is really just a story about a man who is losing his faith because there is so much evil in his world. As people telling Pero, this story is about you, and he doesn’t understand why they keep saying that.

Learning to stand and resist that evil when it arrives at your door takes more courage and faith. We can’t run from it. We can’t abandon those we love. And we can’t become evil like them. Selah.

“Parakalo, Pero, do not do this. Remember who you are. You are a good man. You are a good man of God. Ask him for forgiveness. Repent.”
Excerpt – The Crystal Crux: Betrayal

“You know it’s a trap,” she whispered loud enough for him to hear. “Why are you walking into a trap?”
The words emerged too late. She never saw him leave. The door slammed shut on her heart. Pero was dead. He had gone to the other side.
Excerpt – The Crystal Crux Series: Betrayal