" But she would collapse into the fire before she would obey that man. “No.” Let the snivelling fools who followed this bastard see her for who and what she was, not someone to scorn but someone to fear. He would not win. She would die first. She reached deep, heart racing, and found rage. She didn’t care that Shadows clung to it, that it reeked of Darkness. Her scarred palm throbbed with it. She embraced it, erupted with it, felt herself shatter from within as she shrieked, “Bastard! "

― Patricia Burroughs , This Crumbling Pageant (The Fury Triad #1)