Iron Flame Quotes

We have calcium in our bones, iron in our veins, carbon in our souls, and nitrogen in our brains. 93 percent stardust, with souls made of flames, we are all just stars that have people names.

My house. My chair. My woman.

Violence, remember it's only the body that's fragile. You are unbreakable.

Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you’ve entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it. And hope? That shit is harder to kill than a dragon.

You must save yourself," Tairn demands. "I chose you not as my next but as my last, and should you fall, then I will follow.

Stop bringing logic into an emotional argument.

The firmest friendships have been formed in mutual adversity, as iron is most strongly united by the fiercest flame

The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.

You’re my gravity. Nothing in my world works without you.” “Gravity,” he whispers, a slow, beautiful smile curving his mouth. “The one force we can never escape,” I tease.

My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek at your side.

There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, remember?

Good idea. I could use a snack.” Andarna’s tone is indecently excited. “We do not eat our allies,” Tairn lectures. “You never let me have any fun.

Scratch her eyes out,” Andarna suggests. “Really. The eyes are the softest tissue. Just jab your thumbs in there—” “Andarna! Use some common sense,” Tairn snaps. “The kneecaps are a much easier target.

Secrets make for poor leverage. They die with the people who keep them.

You’re capable of hurting me in ways I’m not sure you’ve even begun to fathom, Violet. I might be skilled enough to land a death blow, but you alone have the power to fucking destroy me.

I love you,” I whisper. “You could throw my entire world into upheaval, and I would still love you. You could keep secrets, run a revolution, frustrate the shit out of me, probably ruin me, and I would still love you. I can’t make it stop. I don’t want to. You’re my gravity. Nothing in my world works without you.

I could torch him if you would like,” Tairn offers. “But you do seem attached.

Love doesn’t even have the decency to die. It just transforms into abject misery.

I do. I’m sorry if you expect me to do the noble thing. I warned you. I’m not sweet or soft or kind, and you fell anyway. This is what you get, Violet— me. The good, the bad, the unforgivable. All of it. I am yours.” His arm wraps around the small of my back, holding me steady and close. “You want to know something true? Something real? I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been since the night the snow fell in your hair and you kissed me for the first time. I’m grateful my life is tied to yours because it means I won’t have to face a day without you in it. My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek at your side. It’s a damned good thing that you love me, too, because you’re stuck with me in this life and every other that could possibly follow.

I love you. The world does not exist for me beyond you.

Touch me and I swear to the gods, I’ll cut your fucking hands off and let the quadrant sort you out in the next round of challenges, Dain Aetos.

I'm just as reckless for you as you are for me.

I chose you not as my next, but as my last, and should you fall, then I will follow.

I bet we get seven inches tonight.” “Maybe more if you’re good.

You do not have the right to burn what is mine.

How long do you think it takes for someone to fall out of love?” He studies the skyline. “A day? A month? I’m asking because I don’t have any experience with it.” What the fuck? I fold my arms to keep from giving in to the impulse to jab him with the sharp point of my elbow. “I’m asking,” he continues, his throat working as he swallows, “because I think it will take you all of a heartbeat once you know.

I think I liked you better before you decided that feelings were something we need to discuss.” “Sorry to inconvenience you, but this year the role of Violet Sorrengail”—he points to me—“ will be played by Xaden Riorson”—he taps his chest—“ who will drag her, kicking and screaming if he has to, into a real relationship with real discussions, because he refuses to lose her again. If I have to evolve, you do, too.

She made it,” I whisper up to Liam.

On his first hand he wore rings of stone, Iron, Amber, Wood and Bone. There were rings unseen on his second hand, One blood in a flowing band, One was air all whisper thin, And the ring of ice had a flaw within. Full faintly shone the ring of flame, And the final ring was without name.

But I’m begging you, Violet. Don’t offer me your body unless you’re offering me everything. I want you more than I want to fuck you. I want those three little words back.

My wife is not as fickle as a flame. She is an ocean. I knew from the first that I cannot own her, cannot tame her, but I am the only storm that moves her depths and stirs her tides. And that is more than enough.

With trembling hands, I unfold the paper—and smile. Xaden Riorson wrote me a letter.

I can handle pain.” I turn toward her. “I live in pain. I practically built a house there and set up a whole economy. I can take whatever they dish out.

Who the fuck’s flight jacket are you wearing?

People are trying to kill you?” Jesinia’s brow knits. “It’s Thursday.

Words are just as capable of eviscerating someone as a blade,

We do not eat our allies. —Tairn’s personal addendum to the Book of Brennan as quoted by Cadet Violet Sorrengail

That trick you mentioned? You know, with the fingers?” A slow smile spreads across my face. “Thanks.

I will happily watch Aretia burn to the fucking ground again if it means you live.

Remember it's only your body thats fragile. You are unbreakable. - Xaden Riorson

Because you didn’t fall for an ordinary rider. You fell for the leader of a revolution,” he whispers, the sound so soft it barely carries to my ears.

Me? Argue with you about books? I only pick fights I can win.

I meant what I said on the parapet. Even when I’m not with you, there’s only you.

I haven’t exactly made it easy for you to trust me,” he says, stroking his thumb over my cheek. “I’m still not making it easy. But you and I are not easy people. What we build together has to be strong enough to withstand a storm. Or a war. Easy isn’t going to give that to us.

Brighid’s eyes flashed with a blue flame, and I wondered if she had learned to do that just so she could compete with the Morrigan’s red flashes. Maybe I should try to figure out how to make my eyes flash green so I could freak out the baristas at Starbucks. “No, you foolish mortal,” I’d say as my eyes glowed, “I ordered a nonfat latte.

Fucking Dain.

Glamour is fueled by the dreams and imagination of mortals. Writers, artists, little boys pretending to be knights - the fey are drawn to them like moths to flame. Why do you think so many children have imaginary friends?

You still don’t trust me, and that’s all right. I told you I’m not in this for a battle. I’m winning the damned war. I’m a fucking fool for saying this, but when haven’t I been a fool when it comes to you?

My house. My chair. My woman.’ - Xaden Riorson

Yeah, well, it cost me you.

I’m more than willing to let you burn me.

To which I will remind you that not a single dragon chose her. You were selected by two.

Well, this is awkward,” Xaden calls out. And every head in the courtyard turns our direction.

The four of us stick together. That’s the deal. We make it to graduation, no matter what.

My love isn’t fickle.” I shake my head slowly, keeping my gaze locked on his. “So you’d better live, because I’m ready to ask you all the fucking questions.

He sat across from me now, chin on his hands, brooding into the fire. Part of me wanted to walk up to him and hug him from behind, and part of me wanted to hurl a snowball at his perfect face to get some kind of reaction. I opted for a less suicidal route. “Hey,” I said, poking at the flames with a stick, making them cough sparks. “Earth to Ash. What are you thinking about?

You should take her at her word. In fact…” Xaden doesn’t bother to lower his voice. “If you don’t, I’ll take personal offense. She made her choice, and it wasn’t you. It will never be you. I know it. She knows it. The whole quadrant knows it.

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

You love me,” he whispers. “Stop reminding me. I thought we agreed not to fight tonight.” I snuggle in deeper, his warmth lulling me into that sweet middle space between wakefulness and oblivion. “Maybe you’re not the one I’m reminding.

Now cease this line of thinking. It does not serve to make you stronger.

You want to know something true? Something real? I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been since the night the snow fell in your hair and you kissed me for the first time. I’m grateful my life is tied to yours because it means I won’t have to face a day without you in it. My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek at your side. It’s a damned good thing that you love me, too, because you’re stuck with me in this life and every other that could possibly follow.” My lips part. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, ever needed to hear. “I do love you,” I admit in a whisper.

I lift my flight goggles as Tairn walks off with Sgaeyl, their tails swishing in rhythm. It’s a little thing, but it makes me smile.

Home. Gods, he tastes like home.

He bent down burying his face in my neck. I reached back to grab onto the iron bars behind me to hold myself up. My jacket slipped off my shoulders. I was pretty sure I was on fire and at that moment I would have sworn that bursting into flame was a glorious way to go.

My gaze finds Xaden’s in under a second, and it’s not because he’s seated at the center of the table, or because he’s one of only two men dressed in black, or even because he’s turned around as if he sensed me coming—which he probably did. I locate him within a heartbeat because he’s the center of my gravity.

Who did you kill?" She directs the question at Xaden. "Everyone" he responds unapologetically. She nods, then drops her blade.

Most generals dream of dying in service to their kingdom. But you know me better than that, my love. When I fall, it will be for one reason only: to protect our children. —Recovered, Unsent Correspondence of General Lilith Sorrengail

We do not eat our allies

I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been since the night the snow fell in your hair and you kissed me for the first time. I’m grateful my life is tied to yours because it means I won’t have to face a day without you in it. My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek at your side.

She makes a good point," Andarna agrees. "Can you carry a luminary?" "That question insults me." "Can you carry a luminary while insulted?" she prods. Tairn growls.

Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you’ve entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it.

I go where you go.

All this time, you’ve been convincing everyone you’re the hero, and now you’ll be the villain…especially in her story.

Aren’t you going to tell me how brilliant that idea was?” Tairn scoffs. “I chose you last year for that brilliance, and now you’d like to be congratulated like it’s something new? How odd.

Whatever is going through that beautiful mind, I’m here for it.

If you didn't figure it out, you weren't worthy of knowing." She huffs. "I waited six hundred and fifty years to hatch. Waited until your eighteenth summer, when I heard our elders talk of a weakling daughter of their general, the girl forecasted to become the head of the scribes, and I knew. You would have the mind of a scribe and the heart of a rider. You would be mine." She leans into my hand. "You are as unique as I am. We want the same things." "You couldn't have known I would be a rider." "And yet, here we are." A thousand questions go through my head, none of which we have the time for, so I give her exactly what I wanted–to be seen for who and what she is. "You are not a black dragon, or any of the six that we know of. You're a seventh breed." "Yes." Her eyes widen in excitement.

I need to know you’ll be here. That no matter what happens, you’ll come back so we can talk it out or fight it out.” His gaze drops to my mouth, then skims over my features. My heart clenches, and I slide my hand along his chest, around his ribs, to his back, and then I hold on. “Done.

Garrick Tavis. Xaden Riorson.” Captain Fitzgibbons’s voice carries over the formation as he reads from the death roll. “Well, this is awkward,” Xaden calls out. And every head in the courtyard turns our direction.

oxygen Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even, while it calls the earth its home, the soul. So the merciful, noisy machine stands in our house working away in its lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel before the fire, stirring with a stick of iron, letting the logs lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room, are in your usual position, leaning on your right shoulder which aches all day. You are breathing patiently; it is a beautiful sound. It is your life, which is so close to my own that I would not know where to drop the knife of separation. And what does this have to do with love, except everything? Now the fire rises and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red roses of flame. Then it settles to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift: our purest, sweet necessity: the air.

Violence, remember it’s only the body that’s fragile. You are unbreakable.

Good. That hilt is eight inches—” “Seven,” Dain corrects. “Imagine a man actually shortening a girl’s estimate,” Maren teases.

My house. My chair. My woman - Xaden

Xaden loves me. He chose me. I will be the most powerful rider of my generation.

Under torture you are as if under the dominion of those grasses that produce visions. Everything you have heard told, everything you have read returns to your mind, as if you were being transported, not toward heaven, but toward hell. Under torture you say not only what the inquisitor wants, but also what you imagine might please him, because a bond (this, truly, diabolical) is established between you and him ... These things I know, Ubertino; I also have belonged to those groups of men who believe they can produce the truth with white-hot iron. Well, let me tell you, the white heat of truth comes from another flame.

Tell me something real.” It comes out as a plea, just like it did last year. He sighs and curls around me. “I know who you really are, Violet. Even when you keep things from me, I know you,” he promises.

Shit. What is this? Jealousy? Anxiety? Insecurity? “All three,

You’re going to love Violet. She’s smart and stubborn. Reminds me a lot of you, actually. You just have to remember when you meet her: she’s not her mother. —Recovered Correspondence of Cadet Liam Mairi to Sloane Mairi

I love you. The world does not exist for me beyond you.” Leaning down, he rests his forehead against mine. “I couldn’t tell you that the last time we flew into a fight, and I should have.” “I love you, too.

I want you more than my next breath, but I can’t fuck you into looking at me like you used to. I refuse to use sex as a tool to get you back.” He takes my hand and presses it to my chest. “Not when I want to be here.

Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.

I want the woman I fell for. It kills me every time I have to keep my hands off you, every night I lie awake next to you, both blessed and damned with the memory of how hot, how wet, how fucking perfect you feel when I’m losing myself in you.

Turns out, falling in love with someone only brings that blissful high all the poets talk about if they love you back. And if they keep secrets that jeopardize everyone and everything you hold dear? Love doesn't even have the decency to die. It just transforms into abject misery. That's what this ache in my chest is: misery. Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you've entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it. And hope? That shit is harder to kill than a dragon.

Men-kind shared this world for but a blink, then, sadly, they became enlightened, found science and religion. The new world of men left little room for magic or the magical creatures of old. Earth’s first children were driven into the shadows by flame and cold iron, by man’s insatiable need of conquest.

Squatting on old bones and excrement and rusty iron, in a white blaze of heat, a panorama of naked idiots stretches to the horizon. Complete silence - their speech centres are destroyed - except for the crackle of sparks and the popping of singed flesh as they apply electrodes up and down the spine. White smoke of burning flesh hangs in the motionless air. A group of children have tied an idiot to a post with barbed wire and built a fire between his legs and stand watching with bestial curiosity as the flames lick his thighs. His flesh jerks in the fire with insect agony.

Sharing a life threads more than flesh and blood together. It weaves her memories in and around and through mine. The more I know of her, the more I share of her, the more I love her in a way the boy I used to be never knew how to love. Eo was a flame, dancing against the wind. I tried to catch her. Tried to hold her. But she was never meant to be held. My wife is not as fickle as a flame. She is an ocean. I knew from the first that I cannot own her, cannot tame her, but I am the only storm that moves her depths and stirs her tides. And that is more than enough.

Do you see this lantern? cried Syme in a terrible voice.'Do you see the cross carved on it, and the flame inside? You did not make it. You did not light it. Better men than you, men who could believe and obey, twisted the entrails of iron and preserved the legend of fire. There is not a street you walk on, there is not a thread you wear, that was not made as this lantern was, by denying your philosophy of dirt and rats. You can make nothing. You can only destroy. You will destroy mankind, you will destroy the world. Let that suffice you. Yet this one old Christian lantern you shall not destroy. It shall go where your empire of apes will never have the wit to find it.

In a vast space left free between the crowd and the fire, a young girl was dancing. Whether this young girl was a human being, a fairy, or an angel, is what Gringoire, sceptical philosopher and ironical poet that he was, could not decide at the first moment, so fascinated was he by this dazzling vision. She was not tall, though she seemed so, so boldly did her slender form dart about. She was swarthy of complexion, but one divined that, by day, her skin must possess that beautiful golden tone of the Andalusians and the Roman women. Her little foot, too, was Andalusian, for it was both pinched and at ease in its graceful shoe. She danced, she turned, she whirled rapidly about on an old Persian rug, spread negligently under her feet; and each time that her radiant face passed before you, as she whirled, her great black eyes darted a flash of lightning at you. All around her, all glances were riveted, all mouths open; and, in fact, when she danced thus, to the humming of the Basque tambourine, which her two pure, rounded arms raised above her head, slender, frail and vivacious as a wasp, with her corsage of gold without a fold, her variegated gown puffing out, her bare shoulders, her delicate limbs, which her petticoat revealed at times, her black hair, her eyes of flame, she was a supernatural creature.

At ten seconds before the hour, they raise their bows and aim the flaming arrows at the waiting well of curling iron. As the clock begins to chime near the gates, the first archer lets his arrow fly, soaring over the crowd and hitting its mark in a shower of sparks. The bonfire ignites in an eruption of yellow flame. Then the second chime follows, the second archer sends his arrow into the yellow flames, and they become a clear sky-blue. A third chime with a third arrow, and the flames are a warm bright pink. Flames the color of a ripe pumpkin follow the fourth arrow. A fifth, and the flames are scarlet-red. A sixth brings a deeper, sparkling crimson. Seven, and the fire is soaked in a color like incandescent wine. Eight, and the flames are shimmering violet. Nine, and the violet shifts to indigo. A tenth chime, a tenth arrow, and the bonfire turns deepest midnight blue. On the penultimate chime, the dancing flames change from blue to black, and for a moment, it is difficult to discount the fire from its cauldron. And on the final strike, the dark flames are replaced with a blinding white, a shower of sparks falling like snowflakes around it. Huge curls of dense white smoke swirl up into the night sky.

Sirs, I am but a nameless man, A rhymester without a home, Yet since I come of the Wessex clay And carry the cross of Rome, I will even answer the mighty earl That asked of Wessex men Why they be meek and monkish folk, And bow to the White Lord's broken yoke; What sign have we save blood and smoke? Here is my answer then. That on you is fallen the shadow, And not upon the Name; That though we scatter and though we fly, And you hang over us like the sky, You are more tired of victory, Than we are tired of shame. That though you hunt the Christian man Like a hare on the hill-side, The hare has still more heart to run Than you have heart to ride. That though all lances split on you, All swords be heaved in vain, We have more lust again to lose Than you to win again. Your lord sits high in the saddle, A broken-hearted king, But our king Alfred, lost from fame, Fallen among foes or bonds of shame, In I know not what mean trade or name, Has still some song to sing. Our monks go robed in rain and snow, But the heart of flame therein, But you go clothed in feasts and flames, When all is ice within; Nor shall all iron dooms make dumb Men wandering ceaselessly, If it be not better to fast for joy Than feast for misery. Nor monkish order only Slides down, as field to fen, All things achieved and chosen pass, As the White Horse fades in the grass, No work of Christian men. Ere the sad gods that made your gods Saw their sad sunrise pass, The White Horse of the White Horse Vale, That you have left to darken and fail, Was cut out of the grass. Therefore your end is on you, Is on you and your kings, Not for a fire in Ely fen, Not that your gods are nine or ten, But because it is only Christian men Guard even heathen things. For our God hath blessed creation, Calling it good. I know What spirit with whom you blindly band Hath blessed destruction with his hand; Yet by God's death the stars shall stand And the small apples grow.

Eventually they climb sixteen steps into the Gallery of Mineralogy. The guide shows them a gate from Brazil and violet amethysts and a meteorite on a pedestal that he claims is as ancient as the solar system itself. Then he leads them single file down two twisting staircases and along several corridors and stops outside an iron door with a single keyhole. “End of tour,” he says. A girl says, “But what’s through there?” “Behind this door is another locked door, slightly smaller.” “And what’s behind that?” “A third locked door, smaller yet.” “What’s behind that?” “A fourth door, and a fifth, on and on until you reach a thirteenth, a little locked door no bigger than a shoe.” The children lean forward. “And then?” “Behind the thirteenth door”—the guide flourishes one of his impossibly wrinkled hands—“is the Sea of Flames.” Puzzlement. Fidgeting. “Come now. You’ve never heard of the Sea of Flames?” The children shake their heads. Marie-Laure squints up at the naked bulbs strung in three-yard intervals along the ceiling; each sets a rainbow-colored halo rotating in her vision. The guide hangs his cane on his wrist and rubs his hands together. “It’s a long story. Do you want to hear a long story?” They nod. He clears his throat. “Centuries ago, in the place we now call Borneo, a prince plucked a blue stone from a dry riverbed because he thought it was pretty. But on the way back to his palace, the prince was attacked by men on horseback and stabbed in the heart.” “Stabbed in the heart?” “Is this true?” A boy says, “Hush.” “The thieves stole his rings, his horse, everything. But because the little blue stone was clenched in his fist, they did not discover it. And the dying prince managed to crawl home. Then he fell unconscious for ten days. On the tenth day, to the amazement of his nurses, he sat up, opened his hand, and there was the stone. “The sultan’s doctors said it was a miracle, that the prince never should have survived such a violent wound. The nurses said the stone must have healing powers. The sultan’s jewelers said something else: they said the stone was the largest raw diamond anyone had ever seen. Their most gifted stonecutter spent eighty days faceting it, and when he was done, it was a brilliant blue, the blue of tropical seas, but it had a touch of red at its center, like flames inside a drop of water. The sultan had the diamond fitted into a crown for the prince, and it was said that when the young prince sat on his throne and the sun hit him just so, he became so dazzling that visitors could not distinguish his figure from light itself.” “Are you sure this is true?” asks a girl. “Hush,” says the boy. “The stone came to be known as the Sea of Flames. Some believed the prince was a deity, that as long as he kept the stone, he could not be killed. But something strange began to happen: the longer the prince wore his crown, the worse his luck became. In a month, he lost a brother to drowning and a second brother to snakebite. Within six months, his father died of disease. To make matters even worse, the sultan’s scouts announced that a great army was gathering in the east. "The prince called together his father’s advisers. All said he should prepare for war, all but one, a priest, who said he’d had a dream. In the dream the Goddess of the Earth told him she’d made the Sea of Flames as a gift for her lover, the God of the Sea, and was sending the jewel to him through the river. But when the river dried up, and the prince plucked it out, the goddess became enraged. She cursed the stone and whoever kept it.