Ash

You shall not discover the truth being being blinded to faith.

Then they took the last step together, and when she kissed her, her mouth as warm as summer, the taste of her sweet and clear, she knew, at last, that she was home.

Every time you come near me,” he said, “you come closer to the end of everything.” “It does not feel that way,” she said. “It feels like I am coming closer to the beginning.

But at some point in her passage, the trees began to change. They stretched taller, and the soft, pale bark darkened, roughened. She put her hand to a tree and touched the lichen growing dark green upon brown, and it felt like old cork, dry and crumbling. Here the sun mellowed, took on the cast of late afternoon, and the shadows seemed to fall a bit longer; the forest had sunk into a deeper silence, magnifying what sounds did arise. The sudden, quick crash of a fox bounding through the brush was as loud as the slam of a great wooden door.

It may not be your dream, Stepsister, but do not scoff at those who do dream of it.

Fear will teach you where to be careful.

She would rather be alone in her room than alone in the midst of a celebration she was not a part of.

The riders, too, were like nothing she had ever seen before: ethereal men and women with pale visages, their cheekbones so sharply sculpted that she could see their skulls through translucent skin. They surrounded her and looked at her with steely blue eyes, each gaze an arrow staking her to that spot, and she could not close her eyes though the sight of them made her eyes burn as if she were looking at the sun.

For in the depths of grief, sometimes one cannot tell the difference between illusion and reality.

With her heart hammering in her throat, Ash asked, ‘Will you do me the honor of dancing with me?’ She looked up at Kaisa, and the huntress’ look of bewilderment was changing, slowly, to a small, tentative smile. It steadied Ash, and she extended her hand across the distance. Kaisa came down the steps, took her hand, and said, ‘Yes.

I would make a poor princess,' she said. 'Why?' 'Have you ever wished to be a princess?' Ash challenged her. 'That depends,' Kaisa said. 'On what?' 'On whether I'd have to marry a prince,' she said and her tone was lighthearted, inviting Ash to share her smile.

She put a hand on the huntress�’s shoulder and asked, �”Is everything as it should be?�” There were tears in Kaisa’�s eyes, and they ran down her cheeks as she answered, �”Yes.�” Ash looked back at the carcass of the stag, and saw that the dogs were being held off now, and one of the men was approaching with his kit of knives to begin the butchering. “Why do you do this if it affects you so?”� asked Ash. Kaisa looked down at the ground and said, �”It is the way of life. It ends.

Ash felt her entire body move toward her, as if every aspect of her being was reorienting itself to this woman, and they could not be close enough. She

Is it true?” she asked. “Is the tale true?” “What is true for your people is not true for mine,” he answered.

Fairies were drawn to in-between times like Midsummer's Eve, when the full weight of summer begins to tip the shorter days of Autumn; or Souls Night, when the spirits of the newly departed walk the land.

Ash knew that this was what the fairies were always hunting for: a circle of joy, hot and brilliant, the scent of love in the deepest winter. But all they could do was create a pale, crystalline imitation, perfect and cold. How it must disappoint them: that they would never be human.

She asked, "Will I die?" He answered, "Only a little," and she put her hand in his, and she felt the ring between their palms, burning like a brand.

Clara wore a dress of brown and cream velvet, and her feathered mask, in comparison, made her look like a sparrow

No one is more impressionable than young humans. They are fooled into thinking they can live forever, when in fact they are about to die.

To charge someone with love is a great responsibility; there will be an equal yet unexpected reaction.

The greenwitches derided the philosophers as joyless old men afraid of magic, and the philosophers, not surprisingly, protested that they found much joy in the real world.

The quiet afternoon opened up between them like a woman stretching her limbs.