Empire of the Dawn (Empire of the Vampire, #3)

by Jay Kristoff

We have news ’pon the winds that Kariim the Spider draws near, and the Iron Maiden shall arrive by Damesday.

A pale moth had emerged from some dark corner of the cell, beating its wings upon the glass. Gabriel watched its courses, battering in vain upon that glowing arc, lost in false starlight.

It helps to hate the things you fight. But it’s far better to love the things you defend.

I know not what sunrise brings, but I know the weight of words unsaid. How soon the chance to speak them can be taken from us, along with the ones we should’ve spoken them to.’

They say time heals all wounds, but in that, as in all things, they lied. Truth is, some hurts run so deep they can never be mended. Truth is, grim Father Time does not give. He only takes.

Two stars, locked in each other’s pull, spiraling ever closer toward the other’s destruction. And this was it. The blood at the bottom of our barrel. The stone-cold edge of the knife.

Sorry is the thing we say when there is nothing to say, but silence feels a sin. We say sorry to comfort ourselves, not the ones we say it to.