Sabaa Tahir Quotes

Children are born to break their mothers’ hearts, my boy.

You—you were like me. You were a child. A normal child. And that was taken from you.”“Does that bother you?”“Well, it certainly makes you harder to hate.

She's still clinging to the side of her mountain, just like I'm still wandering lost in my battlefield.

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!” She leans down, her hair falling around us like a shimmering silver curtain.

Are the Trials starting?” The girl claps her hands over her mouth. “I'm sorry,” she whispers. “I—”“It's all right.” I don't smile at her. It will only scare her. For a female slave, a smile from a Mask is not usually a good thing. “I'm actually wondering the same thing. What's your name?”“S-slave-Girl.” Of course. My mother would already have scourged her name out of existence.“Right. You work for the Commandant?” I want her to say no. I want her to say that my mother roped her into this. I want her to say she's assigned to the kitchens or infirmary, where slaves aren't scarred or missing body p

Disappear! I scream the word in my mind, queen of the desolate landscape therein, ordering her ragged troops to a last stand.

The rest is just wishes and hope, the most fragile of things.

There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.