“I lifted my face to meet the kiss, wanting the comfort of his touch as much as I was willing to provide the comfort of mine. The contact was sweet and soft, yet at the same time desperate.
It was Zane who pulled away first. "Danica, I think..." He trailed off and kissed me again, this time briefly, just the barest touch of lips to lips. "I love you."
From a man who frequently uttered eloquent speeches, the tentative declaration was not the most flattering of compliments-especially when every movement he made and look he cast my way had shown the long truth before now.
But coming from the serpent who had once informed me that he did not love me and did not think he ever could, whose cool, polished words could cut to the bone and freeze the Earth's frozen molten blood — whose eyes right now were just a bid dazed, and whose expression was as open and startled as I had ever seen it — the words were more than enough.
"I know," I answered. Then, soft but certain, I answered, "I love you too."
His smile matched mine and said the same as mine: I know.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“I ask for trust. It is a lot, I know; it isn't easy to give. But it is all I ask.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“Live it well and this life can be grand.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“My prayer is simple my dear one, my dear one. May you never need understand. My prayer is for peacetime, my child, my child. Live it well and this life can be grand.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“The question then is, how much are you willing to give?"
And I answered, "Anything."
A breath later, Zane echoed my response with, "Everything.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“ Do you trust him?
When had we reached the point where the answer to Rei's question had become yes without hesitation? When Zane had sat by my bedside for hours while I was drifting in and out of consciousness? When he had arranged for me to be visited by entertainers and friends, or had carried me home when I was too tired to walk? Or when I had first seen him cry and had wanted nothing but to comfort him?
I do not know how, yet somehow, impossibly, we are here. ”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“I wish to you sunshine, my dear one, my dear one. And treetops for you to soar past. I wish to you innocence, my child, my child. I pray you don't grow up too fast.
Never know pain, my dear one, my dear one. Nor hunger nor fear nor sorrow. Never know war, my child, my child. Remember your hope for tomorrow.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“I could not cry for my own brother; he would not want me to. But I found myself crying for this hated stranger and the endless slaughter that I had almost contributed to." (page 8)”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“I’m not asking for anything beyond your company in sleep. Just let me rest with the sound of your heartbeat beside mine.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“By the time I found sleep that night, back in the Hawk's Keep, my throat was tight with too many tears unshed, screams unuttered and prayers whose words I could never seem to find.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“They say the first of my kind was Alasdair, a human raised by hawks. She learned the languages of birds and was gifted with their form.”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“Days and weeks and years. My brother never returned last night. Days and weeks and years. How long until their assassins find me? Danica Shardae Heir to the Tuuli Thea”
― Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, quote from Hawksong
“It's not hard to mess things up.
It's a lot harder to try and put the world back together again.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“Paula, there is something you need to know with absolute lucidity. It is your choices that have brought you to this point. You are here because of your actions. You will be leaving because of your actions. I am simply the messenger.”
― Laury Falter, quote from Reckoning
“So many synapses,' Drisana said. 'Ten trillion synapses in the cortex alone.'
Danlo made a fist and asked, 'What do the synapses look like?'
'They're modelled as points of light. Ten trillion points of light.' She didn't explain how neurotransmitters diffuse across the synapses, causing the individual neurons to fire. Danlo knew nothing of chemistry or electricity. Instead, she tried to give him some idea of how the heaume's computer stored and imprinted language. 'The computer remembers the synapse configuration of other brains, brains that hold a particular language. This memory is a simulation of that language. And then in your brain, Danlo, select synapses are excited directly and strengthened. The computer speeds up the synapses' natural evolution.'
Danlo tapped the bridge of his nose; his eyes were dark and intent upon a certain sequence of thought. 'The synapses are not allowed to grow naturally, yes?'
'Certainly not. Otherwise imprinting would be impossible.'
'And the synapse configuration – this is really the learning, the essence of another's mind, yes?'
'Yes, Danlo.'
'And not just the learning – isn't this so? You imply that anything in the mind of another could be imprinted in my mind?'
'Almost anything.'
'What about dreams? Could dreams be imprinted?'
'Certainly.'
'And nightmares?'
Drisana squeezed his hand and reassured him. 'No one would imprint a nightmare into another.'
'But it is possible, yes?'
Drisana nodded her head.
'And the emotions ... the fears or loneliness or rage?'
'Those things, too. Some imprimaturs – certainly they're the dregs of the City – some do such things.'
Danlo let his breath out slowly. 'Then how can I know what is real and what is unreal? Is it possible to imprint false memories? Things or events that never happened? Insanity? Could I remember ice as hot or see red as blue? If someone else looked at the world through shaida eyes, would I be infected with this way of seeing things?'
Drisana wrung her hands together, sighed, and looked helplessly at Old Father.
'Oh ho, the boy is difficult, and his questions cut like a sarsara!' Old Father stood up and painfully limped over to Danlo. Both his eyes were open, and he spoke clearly. 'All ideas are infectious, Danlo. Most things learned early in life, we do not choose to learn. Ah, and much that comes later. So, it's so: the two wisdoms. The first wisdom: as best we can, we must choose what to put into our brains. And the second wisdom: the healthy brain creates its own ecology; the vital thoughts and ideas eventually drive out the stupid, the malignant and the parasitical.”
― David Zindell, quote from The Broken God
“What do you do when you're no longer the hero of your own story?”
― Michael Cunningham, quote from By Nightfall
“It has been my experience that the people I judge most harshly are the ones in whom I recognize some part of myself.”
― Melissa Febos, quote from Whip Smart: A Memoir
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