Empire of the Damned (Empire of the Vampire, #2)

by Jay Kristoff

“‘I’m a villain when I need to be.’

So the enemy of my enemy…’ “‘Is usually just another enemy.’

“‘The road is black ahead,’ I told her. ‘And it’s hard to keep walking when you can’t see the ground beneath your feet. But that’s what courage is. The will to keep walking in the darkness. To believe the end is just beyond your outstretched hand, rather than a million miles away. And while some might falter, some might fail, some might curl up like babes rather than walk on through that lonely night, you are not that girl.’

“‘SON OF A rat-fiddling … goat-sucking … pig-fucking whore!’ “Dior’s shout echoed on the ice, teeth bared in a frustrated snarl. “‘You realize you’re only insulting my mama when you call me that?’ I called. ‘It’s not actually an insult to me at all?’ “‘Eat shit, you cack-gargling twatgoblin.’ “‘See, that’s the spirit,’ I smiled. ‘Now pick it up.’

‘Measure yourself not by where others are, but where you used to be.’

This world won’t give you what you want just because you asked nicely, girl. Not respect. Not love. Not peace. You get what you earn.

“‘Thought of what to call her yet?’ I asked, stirring the cookpot. “Dior’s voice was muffled by her furs. ‘Mnnff?’ “I nodded to a shaggy chestnut mare, sheltering in the shadow of a fungus-riddled oak. ‘She needs a better name than Pony.’ “‘Gabriel, the last horse I named hurled herself off a cliff a few days later.’ “‘And your theory is that happened because you gave her a name?’ “‘I’m just saying I ended up sleeping inside her,’ the girl said, still looking queasy about it. ‘So you’ll pardon me if I’m not in a hurry to name another.’ “I glanced at Dior’s beast, lips pursed. ‘What about Blanket?’ “‘Oh, God, STOP IT!’ she wailed, burying her face and kicking her heels.

‘A life without books is a life not lived, Dior. There’s a magik like no other to be found in them. To open a book is to open a door—to another place, another time, another mind. And usually, mademoiselle, it’s a mind far sharper than your own.’

“‘I heard ye were dead, de León.’ “‘Heaven was full. And the devil was afraid to open the door.’

People say the test of a man’s mettle is on the battlefield, but that’s not the truth. You want to know a man, look into his eyes the night before. Before the shouting and screams drown out the voice inside his head. Before he gets drunk enough to think himself brave. When it’s just him, and the things he’s done, and the things he might never do. “That’s when you’ll see us as we truly are.

“‘You want to play?’ “She glanced over her shoulder, ice-blue eyes dark with anger. ‘I don’t know how.’ “‘You want to play for money, then?’

Lilidh Dyvok did not lose control. “She inflicted it.

Cruelty is an infection, spread from one victim to the next; an avalanche rolling ever downhill and crashing worst upon those at the bottom of the pile.

“It is only through falling that we teach ourselves to fly. Our measure be not in how many times we stumble, but how oft we rise. Failure is how we learn.”

“The folk I held dearest were always the ones I quarreled with hardest. Folk who weren’t afraid to slap me out of my bullshit, or tell me I was being an arse. There’s no friend under heaven like an honest one.”

If you’re the smartest man in the room, you’re in the wrong fucking room.

“I shrugged, lacing my collar tighter about my face. “‘Besides, this is more fun.’ “‘Fun?’ “‘Fun,’ I nodded. ‘Dior told me about it. I thought I’d try it for a while.’

“‘The ragout’s excellent. Whatever you do, do not order the Potato Surprise.’ “‘Any particular reason?’ “‘The surprise is dysentery.’

We don’t get broken. We’re made broken. We are not whole alone. But if we’re blessed, if we’re brave, we might find those few whose edges fit against our own. Like pieces of the same puzzle, or shards of the same shattered blade. Those people who, in their own broken way, make our broken edge complete.’

“There’s a thing inside all men that even devils fear, coldblood. It’s a monster most of us keep locked deep inside, knowing what will happen if we let it have its head. We feel a flicker of it when a stranger sets foot in our domain uninvited. We sense it stirring in the night at the sound of a creaking floorboard in our home. But we truly feel it waking when the ones we care for most are in danger; our lovers, our babies, and if we let it loose then, God help the fool who roused it.

I’d nothing to fight with save my bare hands. But bare hands have killed kings, coldblood. Bare hands have built empires. A man and his sword can carve a legend. A man and his army can conquer a nation. A man and his god can remake the world. But swords shatter. Armies falter. Gods betray. “A man’s hands are ever his own.

“But when someone insists on measuring cocks and yours is the biggest, sometimes it’s best to just whip it out and be done.

“Her whisper, my command. I, her master and servant both.

“I’d rather die for something that matters than live for nothing at all.

Pity not the man who dies too soon, but the one who lingers too long. For those men who pass peaceful in their beds, who slip one night soft into sleep and wake nevermore … can they be said to have been awake at all?”

When you truly think about it, alone in the deeping hour, when the music stops and the babble stills and you stare hard into that bloody mirror of your soul, it’s impossible to reconcile the idea of a benevolent creator with a life that looks like this. To convince yourself the one above cares, when there’s so much horror and hurt and hate in the world. Only the blind can look into hellfire and smile. Only the coward raises a fist to his child and calls it love.