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“You are broken. But it is broken things that are the sharpest. The deadliest. It is broken things that are the most unexpected, and the most underestimated”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm

“Laia and Helene: They’re so different. I like that Laia says things I don’t expect, that she speaks almost formally, as if she’s telling a story. I like that she defied my mother to go to the Moon Festival, whereas Helene always obeys the Commandant. Laia is the wild dance of a Tribal campfire, while Helene is the cold blue of an alchemist’s flame.

But why am I even comparing them? I’ve know Laia a few days and Helene all my life. Helene’s no passing attraction. She’s family. More than that. She’s part of me.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“You got there first my love, I envy you so, for how will I endure without you?”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm

“Exhaustion is temporary. Pain is temporary. But Helene dying because I didn't find a way to get her back on time—that's permanent.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“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.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Veturius is a Mask like the rest of us, yes. Bold, brave, strong, swift. But those were afterthoughts for him. Elias sees people as they should be, not as they are. He laughs at himself. He gives of himself - in everything he does. [...] He's the things that I can't be. He's good.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Torch Against the Night

“First you will be unmade. First you will be broken.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Part of me wants desperately to shove my memories of him into the same dark room where my parents and sister live. The room that houses all my pain. But that room should not exist anymore. My family deserves to be remembered. Mourned. Often, and with love. And so does Harper.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm

“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.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Torch Against the Night

“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.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Torch Against the Night

“Rage colors her every movement. Rage that has nothing to do with her so-called bodyguards and everything to do with me and her and the confusion rolling around inside the both of us.
This should be interesting”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“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!â€� She leans down, her hair falling around us like a shimmering silver curtain.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“I miss you. I'll always miss you. Even when I'm a ghost.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Torch Against the Night

“We must understand the creatures, fey or human, who populate our tales. Respect them. Love them, despite the villainous things they do. We must see them. Else how will our stories echo in the hearts of those who hear them? How will the stories survive beyond one telling?”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Sky Beyond the Storm

“Because I know this feeling sweeping through me all too well, the feeling that all my effort, all I have worked for, means nothing. That everything and everyone is a lie. That all is cruel and unforgiving and that there is no justice.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Sometimes, there is no reason. Sometimes you kill and you hate killing but you are a soldier through and through so you keep killing. Your friends die. Your lovers die. And what you have at the end of your life is not the surety that you did it for some grand reason, but the hard knowledge that something was taken from you and you also gave it away. And you know you will carry that weight with you always. For it is a regret that only death can relieve.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm

“You think I want to feel this way about you? I hate it, Elias. Watching you flirt with Illustrian girls and sleep with Scholar slaves and find the good in everyone—everyone—but me.' A sob escapes her—the only time I've ever heard her cry. She chokes it back. 'Loving you is the worst thing that has ever happened to me—worse than the Commandant's whippings, worse than the Trials. It's torture, Elias.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“You're just saying that because you're my- my-"
"Friend?" Is it so hard to admit it?" Laia glances upward, ostentatiously shading her eyes. "A scholar rebel and a Martial Blood Shrike are friends and the sky didn't fall in. Whatever shall we do?”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm

“What good is war, Blood Shrike?" The sadness etched into his face feels ancient, the sorrow of a Soul Catcher instead of the friend I've known since childhood. "How many have died because of a king's greed or a commander's pride? How much pain exists in the world because we cannot get past what has been done to us, because we insist on inflicting pain right back”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm

“...I draw on every last bit of strength I have. I am a thing from the Barbarian's nightmares, a silver-faced, blood-drenched demon of the hells, and I will not let them pass.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“I witness myself through his eyes: angry and cold and weak and strong and brave and warm. Not the Blood Shrike. Helene. And I would be blind not to see what he feels for me. I am woven into his consciousness the way Elias used to be woven into mine. Harper is always aware of where I am, of whether I am all right.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“But you are a paragon of perfection?" Cain tilts his head, appearing genuinely curious. "You live and breath and eat and sleep on the backs of those less fortunate. Your entire existence is due to the oppression of those you view to be lesser. But why you, Blood Shrike? Why did fate see fit to make you the oppressor instead of the oppressed ? What is the meaning of your life?”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates

“Você está quebrada. Mas as coisas quebradas são as mais afiadas. As mais mortais. As coisas quebradas são as mais inesperadas e as mais subestimadas.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm

“I say the words in my mind. I remind myself why I am here. And whatever little feeling was left in me, I set to flame.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Reaper at the Gates