Morning Star (Red Rising Saga, #3)

by Pierce Brown

Man is no island. We need those who love us. We need those who hate us. We need others to tether us to life, to give us a reason to live, to feel.

There is nothing but this world. It is our beginning and our end. Our one chance at joy before the dark.

“Ares sends his regards, motherfucker.”

“Oy, boyo, you look like you slithered out of a skeleton’s rickety cooch.”

You know a people have given up when they stop teaching their children.

Forget a man’s name and he’ll forgive you. Remember it, and he’ll defend you forever.

And when all that remains of us is our steel monuments and plastic idols, her winds will whisper, her sands will shift, and she will spin on and on, forgetting about the bold, hairless apes who thought they deserved immortality.

“If your heart beats like a drum, and your legs a little wet, it’s because the Reaper’s come to collect a little debt.”

“A man thinks he can fly, but he is afraid to jump. A poor friend pushes him from behind.” He looks up at me. “A good friend jumps with.”

War is not monstrous for making corpses of men so much as it is for making machines of them.

“I will give Eo your love. I will make a house for you in the Vale of your fathers. It will be beside my own. Join me there when you die.” He grins. “But I am no builder. So take your time. We will wait.”

How could any boy know that freedom is lost the moment you become a man.

Maybe that’s just the nature of us, ever wishing for things that were and could be rather than things that are and will be. It takes more to hope than to remember.

If you’re watching, Eo, it’s time to close your eyes. The Reaper has come. And he’s brought hell with him.

“Bye, Felicia.”

My son, my son Remember the chains When Gold ruled with iron reins We roared and roared And twisted and screamed For ours, a vale Of better dreams

“My knees?” Sevro smiles wickedly. A mad gleam in his eye. “Stupid Gold. You forgot Howler rule number one. Never bow.”