A Song of Wraiths and Ruin

Do not underestimate the strength it takes to be kind in a world as cruel as ours.

First, a story ends when it ends, and not a moment before. If you are unhappy with this ending, make a new one.

Slaves deserve to be remembered just as much as queens.

The past devours those naive enough to forget it.

The pain you have endured does not justify the pain you inflict on others.

Nothing good can come of a place that refuses to see the pain of the people on whose backs it was built.

This is my mind. I am the strongest person here.

He sighed. “She told me that the people we lose never truly leave, but that only we get to define how they stay.

...to aid even one person is to save an entire world.

The people we lose never truly leave, but that only we get to define how they stay.

He was the kind of person who could be arrested at any time for any reason, who could do everything the soldiers told him to do and still leave the encounter harmed

Bring your location hither, tiny male creature, and his Darajat accent sounded like a warthog imitating a gargling bird.

Now that he was seeing Karina up close, mistaking her for a servant felt like having mistaken the sun for a candle.

Life is full of cheaters [...] If you're playing fair, you're not playing to win.

If I asked you to catch me the moon with your bare hands, how would you do it?" she asked suddenly. Adil closed his eyes, and Karina could not stop staring at the way the gold light illuminated his dark skin. "When the moon began to set, I'd wait with my hands beneath it until it sank right into them. And then I'd turn around and give it to you." He turned to his side and gave Karina a shy smile. "But that's a stupid answer, isn't it?

I don't think you're weak for being scared. I don't think you could be as strong as you are if you weren't.

A story ends when it ends, and not a moment before. If you are unhappy with this ending, make a new one.

You are not strong in body, no. No one will ever sing songs about your physcial prowess. But you are kind... Do not underestimate the strength it takes to be kind in a world as cruel as ours.

I look forward to the day you decide you're ready to fight for something, instead of against everything.

You tear yourself down for things you could not have known or done... why punish a seed for not yet being a tree,

The best way to honor them would be to take them with her toward whatever lay on the other side of that marvelous sunrise

But she held within her all their love and their hopes and their dreams. She was neither a reflection of them nor a replacement, but rather everything they'd been, combined to form something completely new. Something more than she could have been on her own.

Adetunde had gazed up at the girl as if she were the sun and all he'd ever known was night.

Teach me what you know.