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“Hold hands with the devil until you are both over the bridge.
Or kill the devil and burn the bridge so no one can get to you.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“Well, are you ready, Lada Dragwlya, daughter of the dragon?" Fire burned in her heart, and her wounded soul spread out, casting a shadow like wings across her country. This was hers. Not because of her father. Not because of Mehmed. Because the land itself had claimed her as its own. "Not Dragwlya," she said. "Lada Dracul. I am no longer the daughter of the dragon." She lifted her chin, sights set on the horizon. "I am the dragon.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“The world will destroy her in the end. Too much spark leads to explosions. But your sister will destroy as much as she can before she goes out. She will go down in flames and blood.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“No one will be more brutal than me. No one will be more ruthless. And I will never stop fighting.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“Why must I always be a man's servant?" Lada demanded. "If anything, I should be partners with the devil, not his servant.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“She slammed her heel down into his stomach and groin, three sharp jabs. Finally, he stumbled forward, falling to his knees.
“I am not one of you,â€� Lada said, her mouth right next to his ear. “I am better.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“Mercy is the one thing I cannot afford. Not yet. When Wallachia is stable, when we have rebuilt, then yes. What we do now, we do so that someday mercy will be able to survive here.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“Wallachia needs you, and you deserve Wallachia. Let your loyalty be only where your heart is. Everything else can fall by the road and be trodden underfoot as we pass to our home. My fierce little girl. You can do anything.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“Tonight, she felt the full weight of that loss. The loss of a brother who would have stood at her side and fought this battle of manners and politics for her. The loss of a man who would have laughed at her dress and her hair but also been desperate to be alone so he could undo it all for her.
Perhaps she had never stopped being that girl lost in a place where she could never have power.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“Mehmed’s face and the feeling of his hands on her body still haunted her, though. She wished she could carve out his memory with a knife. Trace the lines of him that would not leave her, then cut them free. She would bleed, but she would not die. Still, he lingered in places no knife could ever reach.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“He was not sure. Or at least there was no way for him to be sure. But he could not imagine that Lada would die alone and in secret. Or that she could be dead and he would not somehow know. Surely her death would be marked by something. A comet. A great hole opening in the earth. A tempest, a flood, a fire. A force such as Lada could not depart this world without leaving one last mark.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn

“What if she remembered the fortress wrong? What if she climbed up and the sun did not come out? What if it did, but it felt the same as any other sunrise?
She could not risk tainting that precious memory. She clutched the locket around her neck, the one Radu had given her to replace her old leather pouch. Inside were the dusty remains of an evergreen sprig and a flower from these same mountains. She had carried them with her as talismans through the lands of her enemies. Now she was home, and still in the land of her enemies.
She would climb that peak one day, soon. When it was all hers. She would come back, and she would rebuild the fortress to honor Wallachia.”
― Kiersten White, Now I Rise

“Radu had been wrong all this time. He had felt guilty for the way his heart yearned for other men. But it was not his own love that was poisonous and destructive. His love destroyed nothing, hurt no one. [...] Nazira was right. His love had no evil in it.”
― Kiersten White, Bright We Burn