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

by Leigh Bardugo

“There is but one rule in my wood,” he growled. “Speak truth.”

You see, some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled—not with all the good food or sunshine in the world. That emptiness cannot be banished, and so some days we wake with the feeling of the wind blowing through, and we must simply endure it as the boy did.

“Do not behave as a tyrant and then tell me to scold a tyrant to behave. Show mercy and mercy you may be shown.” “My father never taught me mercy.” “And can you not learn?”

So it was that the valley to the west came to be ruled by a monstrous king and his monstrous queen, who were loved by their people and feared by their enemies.

“Magic doesn’t require beauty,” she said. “Easy magic is pretty. Great magic asks that you trouble the waters. It requires a disruption, something new.”