People say we can understand a person from what she/he highlighted on the books they read. What passages really spoke to them? What wisdom they gathered from the characters’ dialogues? Or, what they thought about some provoking lines that convey their way of thinking? So, here’s my highlighted lines from Leigh Bardugo’s novel King of Scars. This is what you’ll see when you borrowed my tattered copy. Now you can judge me all you want.
“A handsome monster husband who put a crown on her head? It’s a perfect fairy tale to sell to some starry-eyed girl. She can lock you in at night and kiss you sweetly in the morning, and Ravka will be secure.”
Pointless questions. There was no answer that would bring him back.
Saints, she missed him. The ache of his absence felt like a hook lodged inside her heart. The hurt was always there, but in moments like these, it was as if someone had seized hold of the line and pulled.
“The enemy is already inside you, the bad cells eating the others slowly, right there in your lungs. Unusual in a man so young. You’re dying, Captain Birgir,” she said softly, almost kindly. “I’m just going to help you along.”
Above all else, be thieves. Take the work of their enemies and turn it against them. It didn’t matter if Ravka got to the technology first as long as they found ways to make it better. The Fjerdans had developed an engine to drive wagons and armored tank battalions, so the Ravkans had made it powerful enough to move massive ships. The Fjerdans had built steel aircraft that didn’t require Squaller skill to pilot, so Ravka’s Fabrikators stole the design and constructed sleeker flyers in safer, lighter aluminum. The second rule? Be fast.
For Nikolai, a problem had always presented an opportunity no different than the one offered by a Fjerdan engine. You stripped it down to its parts, figured out what drove it, then used those pieces to build something that worked for you instead of against you.
It was one thing to find happiness and lose it, quite another to have someone else’s happiness thrust at you like an unwanted second slice of cake. Then again, she’d never refused a second slice of cake. This will be good for me, she told herself. Like green vegetables and lessons in arithmetic. And I’ll probably enjoy it just as much.
“Do that thing you do where you use too many words to say something simple and confuse the issue.”
“Try not to break her of it.”
No one has, Nina. No one ever will.
I’m not so sure, Matthias. War hadn’t done it. Captivity. Torture. But loss was something different, because she saw no end to it, only the far horizon, stretching on and on.
Little red bird, every day you choose the work of living. Every day you choose to go on. There is no failure here, Nina.
Zoya’s eyes were hard as gems. “I’m not here to debate theology with a mop handle.”
Tolya set the chess piece down. “Time and translation may have muddied the facts.”
“Let’s hope they were very muddied,” said Nikolai. “Possibly sunk in a swamp.”
“Sitting idle in the palace with nothing but her grief to occupy her mind was no good for her.”
“Hand me that brandy,” said Zoya. “I can’t tolerate this degree of stupidity on a clear head.”
“You may well be right,” said Nikolai, forcing himself to find the diplomacy that had always served him well. If you listened to a man’s words, you might learn his wants. The trick was to look into his heart and discover his needs.
Since Nikolai could not be important, he turned his clever mind to the task of becoming charming. His mother was vain, so he paid her compliments. He dressed impeccably in colors that suited her tastes, and whenever he visited her, he made sure to bring her a small gift—a box of sweets, orchids from the hothouse. He pleased her friends with amusing gossip, recited bits of doggerel, and imitated his father’s ministers with startling accuracy. He became a favorite at the queen’s salons, and when he didn’t make an appearance, her ladies were known to exclaim, “Where is that darling boy?”
With his father, Nikolai spoke of hunting and horseflesh, subjects about which he cared nothing but that he knew his father loved. He praised his father’s witty conversation and astute observations and developed a gift for making the king feel both wise and worldly.
He did it because he liked learning the puzzle of each person. He did it because it felt good to feel his influence and understanding grow. But above all else, he did it because he knew he needed to rescue his country.
“But you can’t. So the question is whether you want to hate what you are and put yourself at greater risk of discovery, or accept this thing inside you and learn to control it.”
She wished she had Inej’s gift for spywork or Kaz’s gift for scheming, but she only seemed to have Jesper’s gift for bad decisions.
“You’ve spent your life only choosing the paths at which you knew you could excel. It’s made you lazy.”
“All fuels burn differently. Some faster, some hotter. Hate is one kind of fuel. But hate that began as devotion? That makes for another kind of flame.”
The idea that this was a thing he could face and conquer, or even be destroyed by, was so much easier to accept than the notion of a nightmare he would have to endure forever. He’d begun to believe this thing would be with him always.
“Just listen to her. Ask her questions. Women don’t want to be seduced. They want to be seen and listened to. You can’t do either of those things if you’re thinking up strategies on how to win her over—or reciting the Fourth Epic of Kregi.”
“Keep reciting poetry and I will personally drown you in the lake,” said Tamar.
“He complained,” Nina said—and suddenly she had to look away, because it was not some fictional merchant who had come to mind but Matthias with his strict propriety and his disapproving glower and his loving, generous heart. “He complained all the time.”
“No. We didn’t always agree.” She smiled, tasting salt on her lips. “In fact, we almost never agreed. But he loved me. And I loved him.”
“It’s okay,” said Nina. “The hurt just still catches me by surprise. It’s a sneaky little podge.”
“I had hoped by now you would be further along.”
Zoya planted her fists on her hips. “I’m doing brilliantly.”
Men looked at her and wanted to believe they saw goodness beneath her armor, a kind girl, a gentle girl who would emerge if only given the chance.
“Most women suffer thorns for the sake of the flowers. But we who would wield power adorn ourselves in flowers to hide the sting of our thorns.”
“Are we not all things?”
“this is where you belong. Here they will see the jewel you are inside, not just your pretty eyes.”
“And still the wound bleeds,” said the dragon. “You will never be truly strong until it closes.”
“I don’t want it to heal,” Zoya said angrily, her cheeks wet with tears. Below, she saw the version of Novokribirsk that existed in this twilight world, a black scar across the sands. “I need it.”
The wound was a reminder of her stupidity, of how readily she’d been willing to put her faith in the Darkling’s promise of strength and safety, of how easily she’d given up her power to him—and no one had needed to force her down the aisle to make her do it. She’d done it gladly. You and I are going to change the world, he’d told her. And she’d been fool enough to believe him.
“Every lover I’ve taken has asked about those scars. I make up a new story for each of them.”
“He left his mark on me and I on him. We did each other damage. It deserves to be remembered.”
“’Beware of power, Zoya. There is no amount of it that can make them love you.’”
“I wanted … strength. Safety. I never wanted to feel helpless again.”
“Nina tucked two tiny quail eggs into her skirts in case Trassel had a taste for the finer things, and found herself wondering if they might finish with sugared almond cookies. One could plot violent espionage and still hope for dessert.”
But each day he might endeavor to earn it. If he dared continue on with this wound in his heart. If he dared to be the man he was instead of praying to return to the man he’d once been.
“Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself, just as you did with your training.”
Zoya had loved him with all the greedy, worshipful need in her girlish heart. She had believed he prized her, that he cared for her. She would have done anything for him, fought and died for him. And he had known that.
“I haven’t been asking the right questions, have I? ”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” she replied.
“You’re sure?”
“Which one of us gets to kill the monk?”
“You’re fine.”
No comments:
Post a Comment