Shadow and Bone Trilogy: Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising

by Leigh Bardugo

most ordinary soldiers didn’t trust Grisha and felt no allegiance to the Darkling.

“The King expects to see a humble girl plucked from the ranks of his army, an undiscovered treasure. If you appear in a kefta, he’ll think the Darkling’s been hiding you.”

I’d always assumed that Ravka’s hungry peasants and poorly supplied soldiers were the result of the Shadow Fold. But as we walked by a tree of jade embellished with diamond leaves, I wasn’t so sure.

“Peasants love their Saints. They hunger for the miraculous. And yet they do not love the Grisha. Why do you think that is?”

“I think it is because the Grisha do not suffer the way the Saints suffer, the way the people suffer.”

“You are becoming dangerous, and you will become more dangerous still.”

I wasn’t just failing the Darkling or Baghra or myself. I was failing all of Ravka.

there’s nothing wrong with being a lizard either. Unless you were born to be a hawk.”

“Stop telling me what he said!” she snarled. “He is ancient. He’s had plenty of time to master lying to a lonely, naive girl.”

Squallers were never permitted to draw lightning. It was too unpredictable, too dangerous

the problem with hiring a man who sells his honor is that you can always be outbid.”

“My mother was an oyster,” he said with a wink. “And I’m the pearl.”

I knew I could do more for Ravka as Sturmhond than lazing about at court.”

“Age and birthright don’t matter to the Grisha. All they care about is power.

“We’re giving them hope. That’s better than nothing.” “Spoken like a man who’s never had nothing,

Weakness is a guise. Wear it when they need to know you’re human, but never when you feel it.

Sometimes, it was just easier to follow.

The Materialki weren’t considered warriors, so no one had ever bothered to teach them to fight. It felt like a missed opportunity to me. Use whatever or whoever is in front of you.

“You cannot violate the rules of this world without a price. Those amplifiers were never meant to be. No Grisha should have such power.

“If you’re afraid to disappoint him, think what it will be like to bury him,”

“You are waging an old war, brother. The Darkling doesn’t need a battalion of foot soldiers or heavy guns. All he needs are his Grisha and the nichevo’ya.

The volcra, the nichevo’ya, they were my monsters, all of them. And he was my monster, too.

Up close, it was all loose threads and false shine. Just like me. The threadbare Saint.

The priest would use this chance to separate me from anyone whose loyalties were

“You are on your knees,” I said. “We are not negotiating.”

“What I believe doesn’t matter,” he replied. “That’s what you’ve never understood.

But I seem to be a victim of my own wishes where you are concerned.”

Then there was the eerie, partially submerged iron portcullis we called the Angelgate. It was flanked by two winged stone figures, their heads bent, their hands resting on marble broadswords.

“Careful” wasn’t something we did anymore.

The world seemed suddenly large again. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

It’s not a killer. It’s a thief. It steals years. And he will never get them back.”

“And you are a queen. Your subjects are your children. All of them.”

“Na razrusha’ya. E’ya razrushost.” I am not ruined. I am ruination.

“There’s something wrong with this country. No land. No life. Just a uniform and a gun. That’s how I used to think too.”

The girl you were becoming didn’t need me anymore, but she’s who you were always meant to be.”

He might mourn me. He might never forgive himself. But Nikolai’s first love was Ravka.

First a man, then a mountain. There and gone.

But those dreams belonged to a girl, not to the Sun Summoner, not to a Saint.

When all those who remember your sacrifices are dust in the ground, how long do you think it will take for their children or their grandchildren to turn on you?”

“Morozova did not draw those distinctions. Few Grisha did in those days. He believed if the science was small enough, anything was possible. And for him, it often was.”

“I never wanted him to feel the way I had as a child,” said Baghra. “So I taught him that he had no equal, that he was destined to bow to no man.

If he really thinks a bullet will stop a Grisha with three amplifiers, he is much mistaken.”

“Know that I loved you,” she said to the Darkling. “Know that it was not enough.”

This was what Ravka did. It made orphans. It made misery. No land, no life, just a uniform and a gun. Nikolai had believed in something better.

We posted no watch. If we’d been followed, we had no fight left to give.

Soldiers don’t get to go where they want to. They go where they’re needed.”

If there hadn’t been a war, if the lines had somehow been drawn differently, this would have been a peaceful place.

He’d tried to make a safe place for our kind, maybe the only one in the world. I understand the desire to remain free.

I’d simply grown ruthless enough or selfish enough to take another creature’s life. But I missed the girl who had shown the stag mercy, who had been strong enough to turn away from the lure of power, who had believed in something more.

What would life be like when the people I loved were gone? When there were no mysteries left?