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

by Sabaa Tahir

The cruelest anger comes from the deepest pain.

“Where you go, I go,”

Damn the Nightbringer, I want to say. I don’t care what he said. I only care that you are all right.

“You are cruel, Elias,” she whispers against my mouth. “To give a girl all she desires only to tear it away.”

“This isn’t the end for us, Laia of Serra.” I cannot give up what we could have. I don’t care what bleeding vow I made. “Do you hear me? This is not our end.”

And we are expected to be thankful. To be happy. So many are—I know it. Happy to be safe. To be alive. But it’s not enough—not to me.

we’ll always be lesser unless we can stand up for ourselves.

But I have removed myself from the world. I said farewell to Laia

“Hope is stronger than fear. It is stronger than hate.”

Fear does not rule me as it once did. But some days it stalks me with the ire of a jilted lover.

“You have your own strength,”

Love. I sigh. Love is joy coupled with misery, elation bound to despair. It is a fire that beckons me gently and then burns when I get too close. I hate love. I yearn for it. And it drives me mad.

I am not no one. I am Laia of Serra, and in this moment, I am the only voice my people have.

“Don’t you belittle me.” I step forward, and everything fades—Eleiba’s hand on her weapon, the guards tensing, a murmured plea from Musa to calm down. “I am the daughter of the Lioness. I destroyed Blackcliff. I saved the life of Elias Veturius. I survived Commandant Keris Veturia. I survived the betrayals of the Resistance and the Nightbringer. I crossed the Empire and broke into Kauf Prison. I rescued my brother and hundreds of other Scholars. I am not nothing.”

When you are weak, look to the battlefield. In battle, you will find your vigor. In battle, you will find your strength.

“Forgive her, if you can,” I say. “Remember that fate is never what we think it will be. Your mother—my mother—we can never understand their torments. Their hurts. We may suffer the consequences of their mistakes and their sins, but we should not carry them on our hearts. We don’t deserve that.”

If I seem different, remember that I love you. No matter what happens to me.

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.