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161 " And that was why she would win in the end. Because she would offer up everything on the altar of sacrifice, so long as she kept her country. "
― Kiersten White , Bright We Burn (The Conqueror's Saga, #3)
162 " In the spirit of friendship, I must tell you that I am bitterly jealous of the time you spend in the Janissaries' company. I want you to stop training with them.""And in the spirit of friendship, I must tell you that I do not care in the slightest about your petty jealousies. I am late for my training. "
― Kiersten White , And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1)
163 " She would walk into that tent, and she would stab her first friend, her first lover, her only true equal through the heart. She did not want to, she found. But she would do it anyway. It was what Wallachia needed, what it demanded, and Wallachia came before Mehmed. It always would. It had to. "
164 " ..If anyone is going to kill you, it will be me. Understand?"Radu nodded, snuggling into her shoulder. "Will you protect me?"Until the day I kill you." She jabbed a finger into his side, where he was most ticklish, and he squealed with pained laughter. "
165 " He would die on the wall tonight, between his brothers and his enemies, because he could no longer distinguish between the two. They had finally come to the end. Whichever side won, neither would triumph. "
― Kiersten White , Now I Rise (The Conqueror's Saga, #2)
166 " I do not know how to live in a world where everyone is right and everyone is wrong. Constantine was a good man, and he was also a fool who threw away the lives of his people. I have loved Mehmed with everything I am since I was a child, and I have longed to enter this city triumphant with him. But now that we are here, I cannot look at him without hearing the cries of the dying, without seeing the blood on my hands. Nazira and I—we ate and dreamed and walked and bled with these people. And now they are gone, and my people are here, but I do not know who I am anymore. "
167 " I have met your sister, and I have met Mehmed. They love themselves and their ambition above all else. They love what feeds their ambition, and when it stops feeding that, the love will turn to hate with more passion than either could ever love with. You love with all your heart, Radu, and deserve someone who can answer that with all of theirs. "
168 " He respected them, and he hated them, and he knew the world would be lesser for their deaths. "
169 " But they were capable of greatness. Destined for it, even.” “Then do not aim for greatness. Aim for goodness. And however you get there will be the right path for you, my sweet Radu. "
170 " He had imagined Constantinople, had wanted it for Mehmed. It had been simple and straightforward. But now he knew the true cost of things, the murky horrors of the distance between wanting something and getting it. "
171 " Today, he saw the true cost of two men’s immovable wills. He saw what happened when men were forced to fight each other for months on end. It was not merely sickness of the body that plagued sieges, but sickness of the soul that turned men into monsters. "
172 " Perhaps, looking out over it, Mehmed saw what the beginning of his legacy would eventually lead to. Whatever Mehmed did, whatever he built, the greatest city in the world was irrefutable evidence that all things died. "
173 " Every time Radu thought he had found a place in the world, the world changed around him, and once again he was left alone. "
174 " Radu put one hand on her shoulder, felt Lada’s body contract with silent crying. “Get out,” she said again. He climbed onto the narrow bed and curled around her, holding her until she slept. "
175 " It was wrong, this weighing and measuring lives as though they were coins that could be spent or saved. He longed to be free of it all, to live among men seeing everyone as his brother, to view no one as his enemy. "
176 " Radu had been wrong all this time. He had felt guilty for the way his heart yearned for other men. But it was not his own love that was poisonous and destructive. His love destroyed nothing, hurt no one. [...] Nazira was right. His love had no evil in it. "
177 " Being a Dracul had cost him so much. He had thought he was done paying for the blood that ran through his veins. But he would never be done. The price of being in his family was everything he held dear, taken from him over and over again. They were the dragons. The devils. There was no mercy in them or for them. "
178 " It had felt unavoidable at the time, but how many unavoidable choices of his had resulted in unforgivable consequences? "
179 " I have tried so hard to escape this, but my path was always leading here. I took every turn I could. I found faith and God. I found a new home and country, even new tongues and a new name. But I cannot escape becoming a Dracul. The cruelty, the willingness to destroy everything else in pursuit of a goal. I know what she would do. I know what I need to do. But I do not want to do it. "
180 " That compliment is a bit like a rose. It comes with a lot of barbs and thorns. "