The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic (Grishaverse, #0.5 & 2.5 & 2.6)

by Leigh Bardugo

Ayama knew what it was not to be heard, and she also knew the beast did not lie. He might sometimes be cruel, and he was most certainly dangerous, but he was truthful—just like the thorn wood. For when Ayama had awoken after her adventures, it was the wounds from the thicket that had proven all the sweet blossoms and starlight had been real.

“It is always the same trap,” she said gently. “You longed for conversation. The bear craved jokes. The gray wolf missed music. The boar just wanted someone to tell her troubles to. The trap is loneliness, and none of us escapes it. Not even me.”

“Who are you when she isn’t here, Captain?” “I am …” He wavered. “I am a soldier.”

many ways, that unease has guided me through these stories, that note of trouble that I think many of us hear in familiar tales, because we know—even as children—that impossible tasks are an odd way to choose a spouse, that predators come in many guises, that a prince’s whims are often cruel.