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78 pages, ebook
First published July 9, 2020
“I’m always afraid now. I’m afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of water.” My shoulders heaved. “I’m afraid I’ll never be able to fight again.”
“Fear does not extinguish courage.”
I was a razor blade, all edge and gleam, and I needed to be dulled. I needed to fade. Not to die, not to disappear altogether – just to soften, so the world stopped catching on my sharp corners. So I didn’t feel it when it scraped me. I ached for the comfort of absence. I longed to exist less severely.
“See me now,” he said. “I will always carry the scars, and the memories, but I regained my strength. I found myself again. So will you.”
“Listen,” he said. “To the storm. It has the potential to destroy. It is neither quiet, nor gentle, nor soft. That does not make it unnatural.” Lightning illuminated his features, the blue making his eyes stand out. “Let the storm into you, Paige. Hold it inside. See yourself as a force of nature, vast enough to defeat a god, and carry that image for all of your days.”
“She was not a warrior or a leader or a queen – only a captive, bound at the wrists, unable to see or feel an escape.”
“Trying to get a handle on your sanity, once it starts to slide, is a balancing act. Give a little to the broken parts of you, to keep them quiet and satisfied. Give a little more to the repairs.”
“Listen. To the storm. It has the potential to destroy. It is neither quiet, nor gentle, nor soft. That does not make it unnatural. Let the storm into you, Paige. Hold it inside. See yourself as a force of nature, vast enough to defeat a god, and carry that image for all of your days.”
“Perhaps the Dawn Chorus speaks to me... The birds sing in the twilight that bridges night and day. While they sing, we exist on the threshold between two states.”
“One embrace was never going to put me back together. Only I could do that, and I sensed that it would be a lifelong task.”
“I was a razor blade, all edge, and gleam, and I needed to be dulled. I needed to fade.”
“Fear does not extinguish courage.”
“Let the storm into you, Paige. Hold it inside. See yourself as a force of nature, vast enough to defeat a god, and carry that image for all of your days.”
The Dawn Chorus is a novella that bridges the gap between The Song Rising and The Mask Falling. Starting right after the ending of the third book and alternating between the present and some flashbacks of moments that took place behind the scenes of the first book, Samantha Shannon has written a powerful short story that heavily deals with themes as PTSD, torture, aquaphobia and drug withdrawal.
It broke my heart reading about what Paige was dealing with. It was painful to read at times because it felt so realistic, which makes me want to applaud Shannon for how well-written those scenes are. But the author not only wrote a heartbreaking novella, but indulged us with some cute scenes of Paige and Warden.
I really enjoyed this extra content and I highly recommend it to every fan of The Bone Season series. I think it deals with important themes and also that may include some possible clues for the next instalments. Now all that’s left is to sit, wait and count the days until The Mask Falling comes out.
“Same puzzle, wrong pieces. It was as if we were both spun from glass. As if holding on too hard would fracture us both.”
P.S.: I'm not English, so if you see any mistakes let me know so I can correct them, please.
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