Emperor of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #3)

by Mark Lawrence

Life can tear away what’s vital to a man, hook it from him, one scrap at a time, leaving him empty-handed and beggared by the years. Every man has his thorns, not of him, but in him, deep as bones. The scars of the briar mark me, a calligraphy of violence, a message blood-writ, requiring a lifetime to translate.

“I’ve been to Congression before, Makin. I know what games they play there. This year we’re going to play a new game. Mine. And I’m bringing the right pieces.”

“We’re meat and dirt,” I told them. “Nobody is clean and nothing can wash away our stain, not the blood of the innocent, not the blood of the lamb.” And the brothers watched as a child learned what revenge can do, and what it can’t.

Time heals all wounds, but often it’s only by the application of the grave, and while we live some hurts live with us, burning, making us twist and turn to escape them. And as we twist, we turn into other men.

When you’re in a dark place, and your light is going to run out before too long, you get on with things. It’s a wonder to me how few people apply that same logic to their lives.

“The machines that still keep running won’t run forever, and unless you people get past swords and arrows there’s never going to be anyone to maintain them. Maintenance requires civilization, and we’re not going to get civilization again until all the wars stop.”

“There is an enemy at our gates. Even now. As we spend our words here, the Lord Commander spends the blood of better men to hold his city. This holy city at the heart of our broken empire. This holy city is the heart of our empire. And if you men, you servants of that empire, do not remake the ancient pact, if you do not set upon this throne a single man to carry the responsibility for all our peoples, then that heart will be cut out.