A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3)

by Sabaa Tahir

The cruelest anger comes from the deepest pain.

I think of baby Zacharias and the innocence of his gaze. Marcus too must have looked that way once. Perhaps that’s what his twin, Zak, saw when he looked at him: not the monster he had become, but the brother he had been.

Curse this world for what it does to the mothers, for what it does to the daughters. Curse it for making us strong through loss and pain, our hearts torn from our chests again and again. Curse it for forcing us to endure.

“Your eyes.” She runs a finger across my brows. “They’re like hers.” “Like Shaeva’s,” I say. As they should be. “No,” Laia says. “Like the Commandant’s.”

Chills....

And his champions, those three flames in which he placed all his hopes—Laia of Serra, Helene Aquilla, and Elias Veturius—I smother those flames. For I have taken the Blood Shrike’s soul. The Waiting Place has taken the Soul Catcher’s humanity. And I will crush Laia of Serra’s heart.