Sabaa Tahir Quotes

She's still clinging to the side of her mountain, just like I'm still wandering lost in my battlefield.

Secrets are a snake's way of doing business." "And snakes survive,

Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body's instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that's left is anger and strength.

You killed my mother, who had a lion's heart, and my sister, who laughed like the rain, and my father, who captured truth with a few strokes of a pen.

Sorry is a callous inadequacy.

Too much fear and you're paralyzed. Too little fear and you're arrogant.

We match each other stroke for stroke until I get a hit on her right arm.

She tries to switch sword arms, but I jab my scim at her wrist faster than she can parry. Her scim goes flying, and I tackle her. Her white-blonde hair tumbles free of her bun.

"Surrender!" I pin her down at the wrists, but she trashes and rips one arm free, scrabbling for a dagger at her waist. Steel stabs at my ribs, and seconds later, I am on my back with a blade at my throat.

"Ha!" She leans down, her hair falling around us like a shimmering silver curtain.

I don't look at the wound. I don't need to. I watched the Commandant as she carved it into me, a thick-lined, precise K stretching from my collarbone to the skin over my heart. She branded me. Marked me as her property. It's a scar I'll carry to the grave.

By the time we reach the stretch of dunes that lead to Nur, the moon is high, the galaxy a blaze of silver above. But we are all exhausted from fighting the wind. Izzi's walk has deteriorated to a stumble, and both Keenan and I pant in tiredness. Even Elias struggles, stopping short enough times that I begin to worry for him. "I

I don't smile at her. It will only scare her. For a female slave, a smile from a Mask is not usually a good thing.

But you are not finished. You are my masterpiece, Helene Aquilla, but I have just begun. If you survive, you shall be a force to be reckoned with in this world. But first you will be unmade. First, you will be broken.

This is a bad idea," he murmurs. We're so close that I can see a long eyelash that's landed on his cheek. I can see the hints of blue in his hair. "Then why aren't you stopping it?" "Because I'm a fool." We breathe each other's breath, and as his body relaxes, as his hands finally slide around my back, I close my eyes. Then

Failure doesn't define you. It's what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.

Few people want witnesses to their pain, and grief is the worst pain of all.

You're not like the others. You killed to save. You put others first.

Just because he's a good leader doesn't mean he's a good person.

The voice is deep and soft, not a sound so much as a feeling. It is storm and wind and leaves twisting in the night. It is roots sucking deep at the earth, and the pale, sightless creatures that live below the ground. But there's something wrong with this voice, something diseased at its core.

It's a trick question, Aquilla. A Mask is not made. She is remade. First she is destroyed. Stripped down to the trembling child that lives at her core. It doesn't matter how strong she thinks she is. Blackcliff diminishes, humiliates, and humbles her." "But if she survives, she is reborn. She rises from the shadow world of failure and despair so that she might become as fearful as that which destroyed her. So that she might know darkness and use it as her scim and shield in her mission to serve the Empire.

I'd rather die than live with no mercy, no honor, no soul.

All evil here. Monsters. Little monsters and then big ones.

But you, Helene Aquilla, are no swift-burning spark. You are a torch against the night - if you dare to let yourself burn.

The problem with greedy people, Pop once said to me, is that they think everyone else is as greedy as they are

Laia is curled in a ball on the other, one hand on her armlet, fast asleep.
"You are my temple", I murmur as I knee beside her. "You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release."- Elias

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?

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.

How cruel their beauty seems. Do they not know the evil that has taken place in their shadow?

Willpower alone cannot change one's fate.

You're sure this is what you want?" I search her eyes for doubt, fear, uncertainty, but all I see is that fire. Ten hells
"I'm sure"
"Then I'll find a way

But I'm not strong. I'm weak, and I'm sick of pretending I'm not.

The tapping grows insistent, and I turn, intending to tell off the Cadet. Instead, I'm faced with a slave-girl looking up at me through impossibly long eyelashes. A heated, visceral shock flares through me at the clarity of her dark gold eyes. For a second, I forget my name.
I've never seen her before, because if I had, I'd remember. Despite the heavy silver cuffs and high, painful-looking bun that mark all of Blackcliff's drudges, nothing about her says slave. Her black dress fits her like a glove, sliding over every curve in a way that makes more than one head turn. Her full lips and fine, straight nose would be the envy of most girls, Scholar or not. I stare at her, realize I'm staring, tell myself to stop staring, and then keep staring. My breath falters, and my body, traitor that is, tugs me forward until there are only inches between us.

"Asp-aspirant Veturius."

It's the way she says my name - like it's something to fear - that brings me back to myself. Pull it together, Veturius. I step away, appalled at myself when I see the terror in her eyes.

"What is it?" I ask calmly.

The rest is just wishes and hope, the most fragile of things.

Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don't let it control you. Don't let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.

His eyes are unfathomably sad as he lifts my chin. "Most people," Cain says, "are nothing but glimmers in the great darkness of time. But you, Helene Aquilla, are no swift-burning spark. You are a torch against the night - if you dare to let yourself burn." "Just

So long as you fight in the darkness, you stand in the light.

Once, I'd have wanted that. I'd have wanted someone to tell me what to do, to fix everything. Once, I'd have wanted to be saved.

Keenan. Keenan. Keenan. My mind is filled with him. He has guided me, fought for me, stayed with me. And in doing so, his aloofness has given way to a potent, unspoken love I feel whenever he looks at me. I silence the voice within and take his hand. Every other thought grows distant as calm settles over me, a peace I haven't felt in months. Without looking away from him, I guide his fingers to the buttons of my shirt, pulling open one, then another, leaning forward as I do so. "No," I whisper against his ear. "I don't want you to stop.

Who is my brother now? When did he transform from the boy who made me too-sweet tea to a man with secrets too heavy to share with his little sister?

Safety is an illusion never to trust.

In the night, your loneliness crushes you, as if the sky itself has swooped down to smother you in its cold arms.

Three thousand bodies swing forward, three thousand pairs of boots snap together, three thousand backs jerk as if yanked straight by a puppeteer's hand. In the ensuing silence, you could hear a tear drop.

I search the chaos - through a knot of Resistance fighters descending on a pair of legionnaires, past a Mask fighting off ten rebels at once, to the rubble of the tunnel, where my mother stands. An old Scholar slave trying to escape the havoc makes the mistake of crossing her path. She plunges her scim into his heart with a casual brutality. When she yanks the blade out, she doesn't look at the slave. Instead, she stares at me. As if we are connected, as if she knows my every thought, her gaze slices across the square. She smiles.

It will get better. You'll never forget them, not even after years. But one day, you'll go a whole minute without feeling the pain. Then an hour. A day. That's all you can ask for, really." His voice drops. "You'll heal, I promise.

In the end, I don't answer her question. She doesn't answer mine. Instead, we sit without words, watching the city, the river, the desert beyond, our secrets heavy between us.

Skies save me from the men in my life and all the things they think they know.

The ocean waves thunder on, and it is man who must swim amongst them. The wind blows, cold and brittle, and it is man who must protect against it. The earth shakes and cracks, swallows and destroys, but it is man who must walk upon it. So it is with death. I cannot surrender.

Love. I sigh. Love is joy coupled with misery, elation bound to despair. It is a fire that beckons me gently and then burns when I get too close. I hate love. I yearn for it. And it drives me mad.

There is more to this life than love, Helene Aquilla. There is duty. Empire. Family. Gens. The men you lead. The promises you make.

There are two kinds of guilt. The kind that's a burden and the kind that gives you purpose. Let your guilt be your fuel. Let it remind you of who you want to be. Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It's damaged but it's there. Don't let them take it from you.

All the beauty of the stars means nothing when life here on earth is so ugly.

For tonight, maybe we can just be Laia and Elias.

The only place you'll find a map of Blackcliff," a raspy voice intrudes, "is in the Commandant's head. And I don't think you want to go rummaging around in there.

Slavers catch lies the way spiders catch flies.

A shadow fills the space where he stood, familiar and utterly changed at the same time. "E-Elias?" "I'm here." He hauls me to my feet. He is lean as a rail, and his eyes appear to almost glow in the thickening smoke. "Your brother is here. Tas is here. We're alive. We're all right. And that was beautifully done." He nods to the soldier, who has ripped the dagger out of his thigh and is now crawling away. "He'll be limping for months." I

She has no idea how pretty she is - or what kind of problems her beauty will cause for her at a place like Blackcliff. The wind pulls at her hair again, and I catch her scent - like fruit and sugar.

So long as you fight the darkness, you stand in the light.

I don't need to believe in the supernatural, not when there's worse that roams the night.

You are an ember in the ashes, Elias Veturius. You will spark and burn, ravage and destroy. You cannot change it. You cannot stop it.

I know what it is to lose those you love. I taught myself not to feel anything at all. For so long that it wasn't until I met you that

The permanence of death will always feel like a betrayal

Above, the heavens glow, the sky pale with starlight. Some long-buried part of me understands that this is beauty, but I am unable to wonder at it, the way I did when I was a boy. Back then, I clambered up spiky Jack trees to get closer to the stars, sure that a few feet of height would help me see them better. Back then, my world had been sand and sky and the love of Tribe Saif, who saved me from exposure. Back then, everything was different.

The field of battle is my temple. The swordpoint is my priest. The dance of death is my prayer. The killing blow is my release.

There is success," I say. "And there is failure. The land in between is for those too weak to live. Duty first, unto death.

I will tell you the same thing I tell every slave. The resistance has tried to penetrate this school countless times. I have discovered it every time. if you are working with the resistance, if you contact them, if you think of contacting them, I will know and i will destroy you.

Everyone believes that nothing concerns them until the monsters are knocking on their doors!

My song is not one of peace. It is one of failure and pain. My song is one of battle and blood, death and power. It is not the song of Helene Aquilla. It is the song of the Blood Shrike.

Thank you for giving your life, that I may continue mine.

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.

Perhaps I have become so accustomed to the burden of secrets that I do not notice their weight until I am free of it.

Love cannot live here.

I'm too hot to care.

I never feared the night, not even as a child, but Blackcliff's night is different, heavy with a silence that makes you look over your shoulder, a silence that feels like a living thing.

She takes my arm like an old friend would. "Welcome to the Waiting Place, the realm of ghosts. I am the Soul Catcher, and I am here to help you cross to the other side.

I miss you. I'll always miss you. Even when I'm a ghost.

Don't lock yourself away from those who care about you because you think you'll hurt them or they'll hurt you. What point is there in being human if you don't let yourself feel anything?

You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release.

But if she survives, she is reborn. She rises from the shadow world of failure and despair so that she might become as fearful as that which destroyed her.

Life is hard enough without having to avoid entire rooms in my own head.

Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be.

She makes for the closest training building, and I take my time following, watching the way she moves: angry, favoring her right leg, must have bruised the left in practice, keeps clenching that right fist - probably because she wants to punch me with it.

I recognize the smell - his smell - spice and rain.

True suffering lies in the expectation of pain as much as in the pain itself.

She chuckles again. "Because sane plans never work, girl," she says. "Only the mad ones do.

You will be chained to the darkness within yourself as surely as if chained to the walls of a prison cell.

The stories we tell have power, of course. But the stories that go untold have just as much power

I tear strips of cloth off my shirt and wrap my feet. I have only what I fell asleep with - my fatigues and my dagger. I'm suddenly, fervently grateful that I was too exhausted from combat training to strip before sleeping. Traveling the Great Wastes naked - that would be its own special sort of hell.

My brother is still fighting, and his screams slice right through me. I know then that I will hear them over and over again, echoing in every hour of every day until I am dead or I make it right. I know it.

Nan always said that as long as there is life, there is hope.

Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It's damaged, but it's there. Don't let them take it from you, Elias.

I realize that some naiive sliver of me hoped that he was better than this. Not good, necessarily. Just not evil.

It takes only a split second for life to go horribly wrong. To fix the mess, I need a thousand things to go right. The distance from one bit of luck to the next feels as great as the distance across oceans. But, I decide in this moment, I will bridge that distance, again and again, until I win. I will not fail.

When Hel and I were Fivers, a Barbarian raiding party took us prisoner. I was trussed like a festival-day goat, but they tied Helene's hands in front of her with twine and propped her on the back of a pony, assuming she was harmless. That night, she used the twine to garrote three of our jailers and broke the necks of the other three with her bare hands.
"They always underestimate me," she said afterward, sounding puzzled.

When did you star here?" I ask her.

"Three days ago. Sir. Aspirant. Um - " She wrings her hands.

"Veturius is fine."

She walks carefully, gingerly - the Commandant must have whipped her recently. And yet she doesn't hunch or shuffle like the others slaves. The straight-backed grace with which she moves tells her story better than words. She'd been a freewoman before this - I'd bet my scims on it. And she has no idea how pretty she is - or what kind of problems her beauty will cause for her at a place like Blackcliff. The wind pulls at her hair again, and I catch her scent - like fruit and sugar.

"Can I give you some advice?"

Her head flies up like a scared animal's. At least she's wary. "Right now you..." Will grab the attention of every male in a square mile. "Stand out," I finish. "It's hot, but you should wear a hood or a cloak - something to help you blend in."

She nods, but her eyes are suspicious. She wraps her arms around herself and drops back a little. I don't speak to her again.

Fight back, Laia. For Darin. For Izzi. For every Scholar this beast has abused. Fight. A scream bursts from me, and I claw at Marcus's face, but a punch to my stomach takes the wind out of my lungs. I double over, retching, and his knee comer up into my forehead. The hallway spins, and I drop to my knees. Then I hear him laughting, a sadistic chuckle that stokes my defiance.

Sluggishly, I throw myself at his legs. It won't be like before, like during the raid when I let that Mask drag me about my own house like some dead thing.

This time, I'll fight. Tooth and nail, I'll fight.

Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a single moment comes along to define every second that comes after. Such moments are tests of courage, of strength.

Sometimes loneliness is a choice.

The thought appears in my head, but I hardly know what I means.

Are the Trials starting?" The girl claps her hands over her mouth. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I - "

"It's all right." I don't smile at her. It will only scare her. For a female slave, a smile from a Mask is not usually a good thing. "I'm actually wondering the same thing. What's your name?"

"S-slave-Girl." Of course. My mother would already have scourged her name out of existence.

"Right. You work for the Commandant?" I want her to say no. I want her to say that my mother roped her into this. I want her to say she's assigned to the kitchens or infirmary, where slaves aren't scarred or missing body parts.

But the girl nods in response to my question. Don't let my mother break you, I think. The girl meets my eyes, and there is that feeling again, low and hot and consuming. Don't be weak. Fight. Escape.

A gust of wind whips a strand free from her bun and across her cheekbone. Defiance flashes across her face as she holds my gaze, and for a second, I see my own desire for freedom mirrored, intensified in her eyes. It's something I've never detected in the eyes of a fellow student, let alone a Scholar slave. For one strange moment, I feel less alone.

But then she looks down, and I wonder at my own naiveté. She can't fight. She can't scape. Not from Blackcliff. I smile joylessly; in this, at least, the slave and I are more similar than she'll ever know.

Part of me wants to ask him if I have made the right decision. After so many mistakes, I yearn for the reassurance that I haven't ruined everything yet again. He will say yes, of course. He will comfort me and tell me this is the best way. But doing the right thing now does not undo every mistake I have already made. So I do not ask. I simply nod and follow as he leads the way. Because after all that has happened, I do not deserve comfort.

Even knowing all of that, if I head to Kauf alone, I can make it in half the time that it would take the wagons. I don't wish to leave Laia - I will feel the absence of her voice, her face, every day. I already know it. But if I can make it to the prison in a month, I'll have enough time before Rathana to break Darin out. The Tellis extract will keep the seizures at bay until the wagons get close to the prison. I will see Laia again. I rise, coil my bedroll, and make for Afya's wagon. When I knock on the back door, it takes her only a moment to answer, despite it being the dead of night. She

The monsters crawling through our heads. All the darkness and evil that others perpetrate upon us, all the things we cannot control because we are too young to stop them-they have all stayed with us through the years, waiting in the wings for us to sink to our lowest. Then they leap, ghuls on a dying victim.