Home > Work > A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3)
41 " But I must prepare myself, for such stories are dragons drawn from a deep well in a dark place. Does one summon a dragon? No. One may only invite it and hope it emerges. "
― Sabaa Tahir , A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3)
42 " The permanence of death will always feel like a betrayal "
43 " Curse this world for what it does to mothers, for what it does to daughters. Curse it for making us strong through loss and pain, our hearts torn from our chests again and again. Curse it for forcing us to endure. "
44 " The Scholars around us scatter, running every which way, driven by a fear that's been hammered into our bones. Always us! Our dignity shredded, our families annihilated, our children torn from their parents. Our blood soaking the dirt. What sin was so great that Scholars must pay, with every generation, with the only thing we have left: our lives? "
45 " I wonder if my entire life will be a series of moments in which I realise I'm an idiot long after I can actually do anything about it. "
46 " We are, all of us just visitors in each other's lives "
47 " I’m not her ally, Blood Shrike.” The Nightbringer cocks his head, and I sense his amusement. “I am her master. "
48 " pathetic, human notion—that by drowning in guilt and regret, one can atone for any crime, no matter how despicable. "
49 " The stories we tell have power, of course. But the stories that go untold have just as much power "
50 " but I will not simply leave her to suffer.” All things have a price, Elias Veturius. The price of saving her will haunt you for all your days. Will you pay it? "
51 " I have tried not to think of Elias. But he haunts my thoughts, a ghost who is always on my mind and always out of reach. "
52 " Our stories breathe, Laia of Serra. The stories we tell have power, of course. But the stories that go untold have just as much power, if not more. I will sing you such a story- a story that was long untold. The story of a name and its meaning. Of how that name matters more than any other single word in existence. "
53 " What I feel for Elias is different, a flame I hold close to my heart when I feel my strength flagging. Sometimes, deep in the night as I travel, I picture a future with him. But I dare not look at it too closely. How can I, when it can never be? "
54 " Pain is a choice. Succumb to it and fail. Or defy it and triumph. "
55 " Does she comprehend love? On the days when she teases me about talking in my sleep, or tells strange, funny tales because she knows I ache for Laia, it seems as if she does. But now . . . "
56 " Because I know this feeling sweeping through me far too well, the feeling that all my effort, all I have worked for, means nothing. That everything and everyone is a lie. That all is cruel and unforgiving and that there is no justice. I have survived this feeling before, and I will survive it again. In this fiery hellscape of a world, this mess of blood and madness, justice exists only for those who take it. I’ll be damned if I’m not one of them. "
57 " Why is it always us? All of these people—so many children—hunted and abused and tormented. Families stolen, lives shattered. They come all this way to be rejected yet again, sent outside the city walls to sleep in flimsy tents, to fight over paltry scraps of food, to starve and freeze and suffer more. And we are expected to be thankful. To be happy. So many are—I know it. Happy to be safe. To be alive. But it’s not enough—not to me. "
58 " Your mother—my mother—we can never understand their torments. Their hurts. We may suffer the consequences of their mistakes and their sins, but we should not carry them on our hearts. We don’t deserve that. "
59 " I wish now that I hadn’t opened up to him. “Ah, Laia-aapan.” He uses the Mariner honorific for little sister and jostles me with an arm. “We’ve all made mistakes in love. Me most of all. "
60 " In this fiery hellscape of a world, this mess of blood and madness, justice exists only for those who take it. "