Marie Rutkoski Quotes

Isn't that what stories do, make real things fake, and fake things real?

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

He knew the law of such things: people in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.

You don't, Kestrel, even though the god of lies loves you.

The truth can deceive as well as a lie.

If you won’t be my friend, you’ll regret being my enemy.

You don't need to be gifted with a blade. You are your own best weapon.

Arin smiled. It was a true smile, which let her know that all the others he had given her were not.

My soul is yours," he said. "You know that it is.

Sometimes you think you want something,” Arin told him, “when in reality you need to let it go.

Nothing in dreams can hurt you.

Arin wondered if she would lift her eyes, but wasn’t worried he would be seen in the garden’s shadows. He knew the law of such things: people in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.

Marry him,” Arin said, “but be mine in secret.

The god of lies must love you, you see things so clearly.

She turned to look at him, and he was already looking at her. “I’m going to miss you when I wake up,” she whispered, because she realized that she must have fallen asleep under the sun. Arin was too real for her imagination. He was a dream. “Don’t wake up,” he said.

I don’t mind being a moth. I would probably start eating silk if it meant that I could fly.

People in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.

Will you come with me?" "Ah, Kestrel, that's something you never need to ask.

You might not think of me as your friend,' Kestrel told Arin, 'but I think of you as mine.

The Winner’s Curse is when you come out on top of the bid, but only by paying a steep price.

There was dishonor, she decided, in accepting someone else’s idea of honor without question.

He did not want her to know. He did not want her to see. But: Look at me, he found himself thinking furiously at her. Look at me. She lifted her eyes, and did.

If I die, you'll survive. If you die, it will destroy me.

Arin pulled her onto his lap. He held her shaking form, tucked his face into the crook of her cold neck as she sobbed against him. He murmured that he loved her more than he could say. He promised that he would always choose her first.

She saw him and didn’t understand how she had ever missed his beauty. How it didn’t always strike her as it did now, like a blow.

She reminded herself bitterly that this was what curiosity had bought her: fifty keystones for a singer who refused to sing, a friend who wasn't her friend, some one who was hers and yet would never be hers.

She’d felt it before, she felt it now: the pull to fall in with him, to fall into him, to lose her sense of self.

You will be lonely, but you'll become strong.

Arin. I've wanted to do this for a long time." Her words silenced him, steadied him. Anticipation lifted within her like the fragrance of a garden under the rain. She sat at the piano, touching the keys. "Ready?" He smiled. "Play.

He changed us both." She seemed to struggle for words. "I think of you, all that you lost, who you were, what you were forced to be, and might have been, and I—I have become this, this person, unable to—" She shut her mouth. "Kestrel," he said softly, "I love this person.

She tried to imagine her former self. Enemy. Prisoner. Friend? Daughter. Spy. Prisoner again. “What am I now?” Sarsine held both of Kestrel’s hands. “What ever you want to be.

I told her that I belong to you, and no other.

You could offer her a seat,” Arin said. “Ah, but I have only two chairs in my tent, little Herrani, and we are three. I suppose she could always sit on your lap.

Her fierce creature of a mind: sleek and sharp-clawed and utterly unwilling to be caught.

Cold without, color within. This was how it had been.

She had done everything she could. And he didn't even know.

He lifted her up onto the table so that her face was level with his, and as they kissed it seemed that words were hiding in the air around them, that they were invisible creatures that feathered against her and Arin, then nudged, and buzzed, and tugged. Speak, they said. Speak, the kiss answered.

An emotion clamped down on her heart. It squeezed her into a terrible silence. But he said nothing after that, only her name, as if her name were not a name but a question. Or perhaps that it wasn’t how he had said it, and she was wrong, and she’d heard a question simply because the sound of him speaking her name made her wish that she were his answer.

He'd believed it. She couldn't believe that he believed it. Sometimes, she hated him for that.

You snored,” Kestrel said. “I did not.” “You did. You snored so loudly that the people in my dreams complained.

It was a sin to break a deathbed promise. Arin left without making one.

The snow fell on her, it fell on him, but Kestrel knew that no single flake could ever touch them both. She didn’t look back when he spoke again. “You don’t, Kestrel, even though the god of lies loves you.

Kestrel had bought a life, and loved it, and sold it.

She breathed in the cold, and it felt free, so she felt free, and it felt alive, so she felt alive.

He hadn’t been blessed by the god of death. Arin was the god.

She would never give him her dagger. “I tried so hard to live in your world,” she told him. “Now it’s your turn to live in mine.

Little Fists, what's wrong?

You can't see both sides of one coin at once, can you, child? The god of money always keeps a secret. The god of money was also the god of spies.

It was the horror of someone who'd been dealt a winning hand, had bet her life on the game, and then proceeded (deliberately?) to lose.

For once he didn't stop himself. The pressure of song was too strong, the need for distraction too great. Then he found that the music caged behind his closed teeth was the melody Kestrel had played for him months ago. He felt the sensation of it, low and alive on his mouth. For a moment, he imagine it wasn't the melody that touched his lips, but Kestrel.

He didn’t smile. He cupped her face with both hands. An emotion tugged at his expression, a dark awe, the kind saved for a wild storm that rends the sky but doesn’t ravage your existence, doesn’t destroy every thing you love. The one that lets you feel saved.

It’s a midnight lie... a kind of lie told for someone else’s sake, a lie that sits between goodness and wrong, just as midnight is the moment between night and morning.

Go away, little ghost. Go haunt someone else.

His dear face, dear to her, dearer still. how could she love his face more for its damage? What kind of person saw someone's suffering and felt her heart crack open even wider, even more sweetly than before? There was something wrong with her. It was wrong to want to touch a scar and call it beautiful.

She remembered how her heart, so tight, like a scroll, had opened when Arin kissed her. It had unfurled. If her heart were truly a scroll, she could burn it. It would become a tunnel of flame, a handful of ash. The secrets she had written inside herself would be gone. No one would know

So you give me nothing.” “When have I ever given you anything?” Softly, Arin said, “You gave me much, once.

Isn’t that what stories do, make real things fake, and fake things real?

I have a confession,” he said. “Sometimes I offend on purpose. It’s like my smile.” “That’s not an apology.” “Princes don’t apologize.

The reason you enjoy my company is because I look like how you feel.

Your promises are worth nothing.

She pressed her face into the pillow. His scent was there. She was stupid to have come, yet didn’t have the strength to leave. The ghost of him between the sheets. The shadow of her old self curled into the shadow of him.

Brother, you are mad,” said the queen. “He loves me,” Roshar protested. The cub was sleeping huddled against Rosher’s leg. “And when it has grown, and is large enough to eat a man?” “Then I’ll make Arin take care of him.

I won’t play you because even when I win, I lose. It’s never been just a game between us.

Later, Kestrel wished she had spoken then, that no time had been lost. She wished that she’d had the courage that very moment to tell Arin what she’d finally known to be true: that she loved him with the whole of her heart.

She was learning to live around it.

Nirrim, I can't be good to you." "Then be bad.

There can be second chances. But maybe it's also true that things can never be the same, and that you have to decide whether the second chance lives up to the first.

Sometimes you think you want something,” Arin told him, “when what you need is to let it go.

When you're a stranger to people you care about, you become a stranger to yourself.

Arin hadn’t fallen asleep on the deck of his strangely still ship, yet, it felt as if he’d been dreaming. As if dreams and memories and lies were the same thing.

Tell me what you want,” she said, “and I will make it happen.” I want my liar, I thought. I want her mouth. I want her perfume to rub off on my skin like bruised grass.

A lover? Maybe. Something tender, anyway. But tender like a bruise.

Kestrel thought that maybe she had been wrong, and Risha had been wrong, about forgiveness, that it was neither mud nor stone, but resembled more the drifting white spores. They came loose from the trees when they were ready. Soft to the touch, but made to be let go, so that they could find a place to plant and grow.

She saw, yet again, that her friend's compliments were just bits of art and artifice. They were paper swans, cunningly folded so that they could float on the air for a few moments. Nothing more.

Kestrel felt a slow, slight throb, a shimmer in the blood. She knew it well. Her worst trait. Her best trait. The desire to come out on top, to set her opponent under her thumb. A streak of pride. Her mind ringed with hungry rows of foxlike teeth.

Survival isn't wrong. You can sell your honor in small ways, so long as you guard yourself. you can pour a glass of wine like it's meant to be poured, and watch a man drink, and plot your revenge.

Kestrel's cruel calculation appalled her. This was part of what had made her resist the military: the fact that she could make decisions like this, that she did have a mind for strategy, that people could be so easily become pieces in a game she was determined to win...

How much easier everything would be if that were so. But Kestrel wouldn't let herself consider the truth. She didn't want to know its shape or see its face.

Please understand. When I look at you as if you’re crazy, it’s not that I judge you for your insanity.

As he spoke, it occurred to her that maybe he, too, felt like two people, that maybe everybody does, and that it’s not a question of whether one’s damaged, but of how easily or not that damage is seen.

I wanted to say, I would rather have you for a little time than no time at all. I will remember you perfectly. My memory will touch your skin, your lips. The memory will hurt, but it will be mine.

He struggled, knuckled his eyes, and let the words come. "I want you to be mine, wholly mine, your heart, too. I want you to feel the same way.

A dagger wants flesh, her father would say. Find it.

I realized that wanting is a kind of power even if you don’t get what you want. Wanting illuminates everything you need, and how the world has failed you.

Isn't that... isn't that what friends do? They change our perspective on the world. Part of why we care about them is because we love that feeling. The feeling of being changed.

Kestrel’s laugh was white in the cold. “We could gamble for your coat.” “Ah, love, why don’t we skip to the part where you win and I give it to you?

He told himself a story. Not at first. At first, there wasn’t time for thoughts that came in the shape of words. His head was blessedly empty of stories then. War was coming. It was upon him. Arin had been born in the year of the god of death, and he was finally glad of it. He surrendered himself to his god, who smiled and came close. Stories will get you killed, he murmured in Arin’s ear. Now, you just listen. Listen to me.

She'd betrayed her country because she'd believed it was the right thing to do. Yet would she have done this, if not for Arin? He knew none of it. Had never asked for it. Kestrel had made her own choices. It was unfair to blame him. But she wanted to.

Kestrel let the words echo in her mind. There had been a supple strength to his voice. An unconscious melody. Kestrel wondered if Arin knew how he exposed himself as a singer with every simple, ordinary word. She wondered if he meant to hold her in thrall.

Tell me, little ghost: do you enjoy my company?” She was surprised. “Yes.” “I enjoy yours, too. I can see why you like me. I’m intelligent, charming—not to mention handsome.” “And skilled at preening. Let’s not forget that.

I can't - Kestrel, you must understand that I would never claim you. Calling you a prize - my prize - it was only words. But it worked. Cheat won't harm you, I swear that he won't, but you must...hide yourself a little. Help a little. Just tell us how much time we have before the battle. Give him a reason to decide you're not better off dead. Swallow your pride." "Maybe it's not as easy for me as it is for you." He wheeled on her. "It's not easy for me," "You know that it's not. What do you think I have had to swallow these past ten years? What do you think I have had to do to survive?" "Truly," she said, "I haven't the faintest interest. You may tell your sad story to someone else." He flinched as if slapped. His voice came low: "You can make people feel so small.

It was an old Herrani flag, stitched with the royal crest. Arin said, "But the royal line is gone." "They're looking for something to call you, Kestrel said, nudging Javelin forward. "Not this. It's not right." "Don't worry. They'll find the right words to describe you." "And you." "Oh, that's easy." "It is?" It seemed impossible to name every thing she was to him. Kestrel's expression was serious, luminous. He loved to see her like this. "They'll say that I'm yours," she told him, "just as you are mine.

The guard hit Kestrel across the face. “I said, what did you give him?” You had a warrior’s heart, even then. Kestrel spat blood. “Nothing,” she told the guard. She thought of her father, she thought of Arin. She told her final lie. “I gave him nothing.

Someone was coming through the velvet. He was pulling it wide, he was stepping onto Kestrel’s balcony—close, closer still as she turned and the curtain swayed, then stopped. He pinned the velvet against frame. He held the sweep of it high, at the level of his gray eyes, which were silver in the shadows. He was here. He had come. Arin.

But honesty requires courage. As she cornered the thief in his lair, she found that she wasn’t so sure of herself. She was sure of only one thing. It made her fall back a little. She lifted her chin. Her heart had an unsteady rhythm they both could hear when she told the thief that he might keep what he had stolen.

She said, I'm going to miss you when you when I wake up. Don't wake up, he answered. But he did. Kestrel, beside him on the grass, said. "Did I wake you? I didn't mean to." It took him a velvety moment to understand that this was real. The air was quiet. An insect beat it's clear wings. She brushed hair from his brow. Now he was very awake. "You were sleeping so sweetly," she said. "Dreaming" He touched her tender mouth. "About what?" "Come closer, and I will tell you." But he forgot. He kissed her, and became lost in the exquisite sensation of his skin becoming too tight for his body. He murmured other things instead. A secret, a want, a promise. A story, in its own way. She curled her fingers into the green earth

She remembered her letter confessing every thing to Arin. I am the Moth. I am your country’s spy, she’d written. I have wanted to tell you this for so long. She’d scrawled the emperor’s secret plans. It didn’t matter that this was treason. It didn’t matter that she was supposed to marry the emperor’s son on First-summer’s day, or that her father was the emperor’s most trusted friend. Kestrel ignored that she’d been born Valorian. She’d written what she felt. I love you. I miss you. I would do anything for you.

When Roshar saw her ripped, one-legged trousers and Arin at her side as they stood outside the prince’s tent, his eyes glinted with mirth and Kestrel felt quite sure that the prince was going to say it was about time Arin tore her clothes off. Then Roshar might comment coyly on Arin’s inability to reach a full conclusion (Only one trouser leg? she imagined Roshar saying. How lazy of you, Arin), or on the quaint quality of Arin’s modesty (What a little lamb you are). Perhaps he’d offer condolences to Kestrel on the partial death of her trousers. He’d ask whether she’d gotten injured on purpose.

Kestrel's eyes slipped shut. She faded in and out of sleep. When Arin spoke again, she wasn't sure whether he expected her to to hear him. 'I remember sitting with my mother in a carriage.' There was a long pause. Then Arin's voice came again in that slow, fluid way that showed the singer in him. 'In my memory, I am small and sleepy, and she is doing something strange. Every time the carriage turns into the sun, she raises her hand as if reaching for something. The light lines her fingers with fire. Then the carriage passes through shadows, and her hand falls. Again sunlight beams through the window, and again her hand lifts. It becomes and eclipse.' Kestrel listened, and it was as if the story itself was an eclipse, drawing its darkness over her. 'Just before I fell asleep,' he said, 'I realized that she was shading my eyes from the sun.' She heard Arin shift, felt him look at her. 'Kestrel.' She imagined how he would sit, lean forward. How he would look in the glow of the carriage lantern. 'Survival isn't wrong. You can sell your honor in small ways, so long as you guard yourself. You can pour a glass of wine like it's meant to be poured, and watch a man drink, and plot your revenge.' Perhaps his head tilted slightly at this. 'You probably plot even in your sleep.' There was a silence as long as a smile. 'Plot away, Kestrel. Survive. If I hadn't lived, no one would remember my mother, not like I do.' Kestrel could no longer deny sleep. It pulled her under. 'And I would never have met you.

I told you everything I know", said the messenger. Arin had gone to his childhood suite, feeling anxiety verging on panic at the thought of not finding the man there, of having to track him down, of time lost…but the man had opened the outermost door almost immediately after Arin’s pounding knock. "I didn’t ask you the right questions,“ Arin said. "I want to start again. You said that the prisoner reached trough the bars of the wagon to give you the moth.” “Yes” “And you couldn’t really see her.” “That’s right.” “But you said she was Herrani. Why would you say that if you couldn’t see her?” “Because she spoke in Herrani.” “Perfectly.” “Yes.” “No accent.” “No.” “Describe the hand.” “I’m not sure…” “Start with the skin. You said it was paler than yours, than mine.” “Yes, like a house slave’s.” Which wasn’t very different from a Valorian’s. “Could you see her wrist, her arm?” “The wrist, yes, now that you mention it. She was in chains. I saw the manacle.” “Did you see the sleeve of a dress?” “Maybe. Blue?” Dread churned inside Arin. “You think or you know?” “I don’t know. Things happened too fast.” “Please. This is important.” “I don’t want to say something I’m not sure is true.” “All right, all right. Was this her right hand or her left?” “I don’t know.” “Can you tell me anything about it? Did she wear a seal ring?” “Not that I saw, but –” “Yes?" "She had a birthmark. On the hand, near the thumb. It looked like a little black star.