Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)

by Brandon Sanderson

Well, she now had a better idea of how bad things could get. It was as if . . . once she had feared the darkness, but now she had stepped into it. She had experienced some of the horrors that awaited her there. Terrible as they were, at least she knew.

This is what I would have been, Shallan thought, if I had not been raised in a household of fear. So this is what I will be today.

Father held feasts because he wanted to pretend that everything was all right.