The Black Tides of Heaven (Tensorate #1)

by Neon Yang

A strange, glacial distance had swelled between them, a kind of false peace, the tangles of arguments to come writhing under the surface.

I don’t care about the fortunes. I care about doing whatever you can, with whatever’s in front of you. Because it’s the only thing you can do.”

She looked exactly the same. She looked entirely different.

Yongcheow’s words were backed by the strength of mountains, by the conviction that would lead an unarmed man to stand firm against three soldiers twice his size. Akeha looked at him, really looked, and saw someone whose loss would tear a good fatal chunk out of him.

“The sun falls and returns five times a day, the flowers wilt and return once a year. But the return of a wayward child is something that happens once a lifetime.”