Quotes by Marie Rutkoski

She said, Im going to miss you when you when I wake up.Dont wake up, he answered.But he did.Kestrel, beside him on the grass, said. Did I wake you? I didnt mean to.

The sky was a feather blanket of clouds, save for one blue hole in the fabric. A blue cloud in a white sky.

She looked at the boy. He knew her weakness for storytelling. And it was, after all, only a story. Still, she wished he had chosen a happier one.

Hed believed it. She couldnt believe that he believed it. Sometimes, she hated him for that.

Yet he understood that there are some things you feel and others that you choose to feel, and that the choice doesnt make the feeling less valid.

It was different to give something up than to see it taken away. The difference, Kestrel said, was choice.

Come closer, and I will tell you.But he forgot. He kissed her, and became lost in the exquisite sensation of his skin becoming too tight for his body. He murmured other things instead. A secret, a want, a promise. A story, in its own way.

I cant - Kestrel, you must understand that I would never claim you. Calling you a prize - my prize - it was only words. But it worked. Cheat wont harm you, I swear that he wont, but you must...hide yourself a little. Help a little. Just tell us how much time we have before the battle. Give him a reason to decide youre not better off dead. Swallow your pride.Maybe its not as easy for me as it is for you.He wheeled on her. Its not easy for me, You know that its not. What do you think I have had to swallow these past ten years? What do you think I have had to do to survive?Truly, she said, I havent the faintest interest. You may tell your sad story to someone else.He flinched as if slapped. His voice came low: You can make people feel so small.

It dropped ice to the bottom of his stomach. He thought of the ruined bodies hed seen, including the ones he himself had ruined. He realized that he had somehow expected that hed never have to think again about the way people damage other people. The night of the invasion. Kestrels back. His own. Roshars scarred face. His own.

A dagger wants flesh, her father would say. Find it.

Arin, you’re not listening. You’re not thinking clearly.”“You’re right. I haven’t been thinking clearly, not for a long time. But I understand now.” Arin pushed his tiles away. His winning hand scattered out of line. “You have changed, Kestrel. I don’t know who you are anymore. And I don’t want to.

Sometimes, Arin almost understood what Kestrel had done. Even now, as he felt the drift of the boat and didnt fight its pull, Arin remembered the yearning in Kestrels face whatever shed mentioned her father. Like a homesickness. Arin had wanted to shake it out of her. Especially during those early months when she had owned him. He had wanted to force her to see her father for what he was. He had wanted her to acknowledge what she was, how she was wrong, how she shouldnt long for her fathers love. It was soacked in blood. Didnt she see that? How could she not?Once, hed hated her for it. Then it had somehow touched him. He knew it himself. He, too, wanted what he shouldnt. He, too, felt the heart chooses its own home and refuses reason. Not here, hed tried to say. Not this. Not mine. Never. But he had felt the same sickness.In retrospect, Kestrels role in the taking of the eastern plains was predictable. Sometimes he damned her for currying favor with the emperor, or blamed her playing war like a game just because she could. Yet he thought he knew the truth of her reasons. Shed done it for her father. It almost made sense. At least, it did when he was near sleep and his mind was quiet, and it was harder to help what entered. Right before sleep, he came close to understanding. But he was awake now.

Kestrels eyes slipped shut. She faded in and out of sleep. When Arin spoke again, she wasnt sure whether he expected her to to hear him.I remember sitting with my mother in a carriage. There was a long pause. Then Arins voice came again in that slow, fluid way that showed the singer in him. In my memory, I am small and sleepy, and she is doing something strange. Every time the carriage turns into the sun, she raises her hand as if reaching for something. The light lines her fingers with fire. Then the carriage passes through shadows, and her hand falls. Again sunlight beams through the window, and again her hand lifts. It becomes and eclipse. Kestrel listened, and it was as if the story itself was an eclipse, drawing its darkness over her.Just before I fell asleep, he said, I realized that she was shading my eyes from the sun. She heard Arin shift, felt him look at her.Kestrel. She imagined how he would sit, lean forward. How he would look in the glow of the carriage lantern. Survival isnt wrong. You can sell your honor in small ways, so long as you guard yourself. You can pour a glass of wine like its meant to be poured, and watch a man drink, and plot your revenge. Perhaps his head tilted slightly at this. You probably plot even in your sleep. There was a silence as long as a smile.Plot away, Kestrel. Survive. If I hadnt lived, no one would remember my mother, not like I do. Kestrel could no longer deny sleep. It pulled her under.And I would never have met you.

Shed betrayed her country because shed believed it was the right thing to do. Yet would she have done this, if not for Arin?He knew none of it. Had never asked for it. Kestrel had made her own choices. It was unfair to blame him.But she wanted to.

His dear face, dear to her, dearer still. how could she love his face more for its damage? What kind of person saw someones suffering and felt her heart crack open even wider, even more sweetly than before? There was something wrong with her. It was wrong to want to touch a scar and call it beautiful.

A singer who refused to sing, a friend who wasnt her friend, someone who was hers and yet would never be hers. Kestrel looked away from Arin. She swore to herself that she would never look back

Ultimately, when he held your treasonous letter in his hand and saw how you had lied to him, the choice between me and you was the choice between someone who loves him and someone who didnt.

When I look at you as if youre crazy its not that I judge you for your insanity.

Little Fists, whats wrong?

You cant see both sides of one coin at once, can you, child? The god of money always keeps a secret.The god of money was also the god of spies.