" These days I feel like I'm a monster, too. I like knowing that I'm good enough to win. It makes me think one day I'll be strong enough to burn this Kingdom down. But they made us into monsters, Thom. We weren't born monsters. They enslaved us. They put us in an arena and told us it was kill or die. If we fight back and take them down, if we win and become better than them, then we don't deserve to die. Do you hear me? In this world, the only ones who live do so with bloody hands. But we didn't start this, and we're not going to be them once we're free. Monsters until we're safe, and then we'll be the people we should have been from the start. "

― Rebecca Crunden , A Promise of Return (The Outlands Pentalogy #3)